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Tallis in Wonderland

A Lifelong Preoccupation

Raymond Tallis recalls a life trying to fathom the chasm between mind and brain.

I have been preoccupied with the relationship between the mind and the brain for six decades. I remember arguing with my infinitely patient Oxford neurophysiology tutor in the 60s about whether or not vision really did boil down to activity in the occipital cortex. In the 70s, I read endless articles about the ‘mind-brain identity theory’, wrestling with the notion that conscious experience could be reduced to the passage of ions through semi-permeable membranes.

In the 80s the idea of the brain as a biological computer and what went on in it as ‘information processing’, became increasingly popular. According to many scientists and philosophers, information was everywhere, so the gap between brain and mind could be crossed without the need for an explanation of how nerve impulses were promoted to mental contents.

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