John Eccles Quotations

Many people, including myself, had our scientific lives changed by the inspiring new vision of science that Popper gave us.

I can explain my body and my brain, but there's something more. I can't explain my own existence - what makes me a unique human being.

I came to realise that Darwinian evolution had no explanation of me as an experiencing self.

To the extent that we have a better understanding of the brain, we will have a richer appreciation of ourselves, of our fellow men and of society and, in fact, of the whole world and its problems.

To the brains of our predecessors we owe all of our inheritance of civilization and culture.

We and our fellow men of all countries must realize that we share this wonderful, beautiful, salubrious earth as brothers and that there never will be anywhere else to go.

The origin of each of us stems from codes of genetic inheritance.

Brain research is the ultimate problem confronting man.

England was a delightful and stimulating place for a young academic, although by present standards, the laboratory facilities were primitive. There were almost no research grants and no secretarial assistance, even for Sherrington.

A board constituted as the board of Sydney Hospital is constituted is not a suitable body to have control of an institute of medical research.

The body and dendrites of a nerve cell are specialized for the reception and integration of information which is conveyed as impulses that are fired from other nerve cells along their axons.

Changes in relative ionic concentration across the postsynaptic membrane are readily effected by altering the ionic composition of the external medium.

I decided, as a medical student, to devote myself to a study of the brain.

I, at the age of 17 or 18 as a medical student, suddenly came up against a problem: 'What am I? What is the meaning of my existence as I experience it?'

I am passionately devoted to the study of life, and particularly to the higher forms of life.

How we come to be, and how we are what we are, is beyond any understanding. I have been obsessed by this, trying to understand the very nature of my existence.

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.

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.

I can state with complete assurance that for each of us our brains form the material basis of our experiences and memories, our imaginations, our dreams.

A better understanding of the brain is certain to lead man to a richer comprehension both of himself, of his fellow man, and of society, and in fact of the whole world with its problems.

Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of a conflict is a result of ignorance. We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence.

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 last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brain.