On Human Nature

We will create a revolution in our understanding of human nature, when we can explain how the brain generates the mind. We have no idea how the brain can produce a directive, willful “I,” how self-consciousness flows from brain tissue, and how we can go from tangibles such as neurotransmitters and molecules to intangibles such as thoughts, moods, and perceptions. We don’t know how brain facts become mind facts. We do know that there is not a twisted thought for every twisted neuron.

Early in his career, Freud wrote a book about how the brain worked and was connected to the mind — but he abandoned his work because of the unbridgeable brain-mind discontinuity. He went on to propose his convenient “fictions” of id, ego, and superego.

For psychologists, this brain-mind gap creates obstructions to learning about human nature, leads to accumulating more information than knowledge, and keeps many clinicians trapped in denominational conflicts such as whether to assume a biological or psychodynamic orientation. It is not possible to imagine what the obliteration of the mind-brain problem will lead to in our conception of human nature. My hope is that we will come to a greater understanding of the role of freedom in a world we are not yet able to see.