Frases de John Carew Eccles

John Carew Eccles fue un neurofisiólogo australiano.

Estudió medicina en la Universidad de Melbourne, donde se graduó en 1925. Estudió en Oxford como discípulo del famoso neurofisiólogo Sir Charles Sherrington. En 1937 volvió a Australia como director del Instituto Kanematsu del Hospital de Sydney. Allí, junto con los científicos europeos Bernard Katz y Stephen Kuffler, estudió la transmisión de señales entre nervios y músculos.

Un traslado a Nueva Zelanda en 1944 le puso en contacto con el filósofo Karl Popper, con el que inició una estrecha relación profesional. Eccles desarrolló una filosofía dualista que llamó dualismo interaccionista, que mantiene que hay diferentes sustancias en el universo, una física y otra mental.

Tras nuevo traslado, esta vez a la recién inaugurada Universidad Nacional Australiana de Canberra, Eccles trabajó en el mecanismo iónico de excitación e inhibición de las sinapsis cerebrales, lo que le valió el Premio Nobel en 1963.

En sus últimas décadas, Eccles se interesó cada vez más por un panorama más amplio en el que centró su investigación y trató cuestiones filosóficas, desarrollando sus propias respuestas a preguntas básicas como qué significa ser humano. Durante estos años, nunca dejó de utilizar la investigación científica para obtener respuestas, sino que utilizó esta investigación como prueba, teniendo en cuenta las limitaciones de ese enfoque. Eccles pronunció las conferencias Gifford en la Universidad de Edimburgo en 1977 con los títulos "El misterio humano" y "El psiquismo humano".



1932. Reflex Activity of the Spinal Cord

1953. The neurophysiological basic of the mind: The principles of neurophysiology, Oxford: Clarendon

1957. The Physiology of Nerve Cells

1964. The Physiology of Synapses

1965. The brain and the unity of conscious experience, London: Cambridge University Press

1969. The Inhibitory Pathways of the Central Nervous System

1970. Facing reality: Philosophical Adventures by a Brain Scientist, Berlín: Springer

1973. The Understanding of the Brain

1977. The Self and Its Brain, con Karl Popper, Berlín: Springer

1979. The human mystery, Berlín: Springer

1980. The Human Psyche

1984.Robinson, Daniel N.; Eccles, John C. The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind. Collier Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-908860-7.

1985. Mind & Brain: The Many-Faceted Problems, , New York : Paragon House

1989. Evolution Of The Brain: Creation Of The Self

1994. How the Self Controls Its Brain Wikipedia  

✵ 27. enero 1903 – 2. mayo 1997
John Carew Eccles: 12   frases 0   Me gusta

John Carew Eccles: Frases en inglés

“I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity.”

Fuente: Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self (1989), p. 241
Contexto: I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition … we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.

“Psychons are not perceptual paths to experiences. They are the experiences in all their diversity and uniqueness. There could be millions of psychons each linked uniquely to the millions of dendrons. It is hypothesized that it is the very nature of psychons to link together in providing a unified experience.”

John C. Eccles libro How the Self Controls Its Brain

He here refers to his proposal in "A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex" (1990); published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B 240, p. 433 - 451
How the Self Controls Its Brain (1994)
Contexto: The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity. Each of these mental units is reciprocally linked in some unitary manner to a dendron … Appropriately we name these proposed mental units 'psychons.' Psychons are not perceptual paths to experiences. They are the experiences in all their diversity and uniqueness. There could be millions of psychons each linked uniquely to the millions of dendrons. It is hypothesized that it is the very nature of psychons to link together in providing a unified experience.

“The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity.”

John C. Eccles libro How the Self Controls Its Brain

He here refers to his proposal in "A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex" (1990); published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B 240, p. 433 - 451
How the Self Controls Its Brain (1994)
Contexto: The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity. Each of these mental units is reciprocally linked in some unitary manner to a dendron … Appropriately we name these proposed mental units 'psychons.' Psychons are not perceptual paths to experiences. They are the experiences in all their diversity and uniqueness. There could be millions of psychons each linked uniquely to the millions of dendrons. It is hypothesized that it is the very nature of psychons to link together in providing a unified experience.

“I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin.”

Fuente: Facing Reality (1970), p. 83
Contexto: I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin. … I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions.

“The materialist critics argue that insuperable difficulties are encountered by the hypothesis that immaterial mental events can act in any way on material structures such as neurons.”

John C. Eccles libro How the Self Controls Its Brain

How the Self Controls Its Brain (1994)
Contexto: The materialist critics argue that insuperable difficulties are encountered by the hypothesis that immaterial mental events can act in any way on material structures such as neurons. Such a presumed action is alleged to be incompatible with the conservation laws of physics, in particular of the first law of thermodynamics. This objection would certainly be sustained by nineteenth century physicists, and by neuroscientists and philosophers who are still ideologically in the physics of the nineteenth century, not recognizing the revolution wrought by quantum physicists in the twentieth century.

“In order that a "self" may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness.”

As quoted in "Eccles' Model of the Self Controlling Its Brain : The Irrelevance of Dualist-Interactionism" (2003) by Donald E. Watson and Bernard O. Williams http://www.enformy.com/$dual.html
Contexto: In order that a "self" may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness. For example, the continuity of our "self" is resumed after sleep, anaesthesia, and the temporary amnesias of concussion and convulsions.

“The more we discover scientifically about the brain the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become.”

John C. Eccles libro How the Self Controls Its Brain

How the Self Controls Its Brain (1994)
Contexto: The more we discover scientifically about the brain the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a superstition held by dogmatic materialists. It has all the features of a Messianic prophecy, with the promise of a future freed of all problems—a kind of Nirvana for our unfortunate successors.

“span id=Popper_63_Introduction>I can now rejoice even in the falsification of a cherished theory, because even this is a scientific success.</span”

As quoted in the Introduction of Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963) by Karl Popper