A linkage of mind and brain: Sir John Eccles and modern dualistic interactionism

Abstract

Our minds, constituted by conscious experiences, are both the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives. Despite the large amount of clinical evidence suggesting an intimate relationship between the brain function and the mind, the nature of this relationship remains poorly understood. In this Commentary we discuss some of the problems faced by the classical mind-brain identity theory and explain how the quantum dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles could resolve these problems. Biomedical Reviews 2011; 22: 81-84.