KARL H.

PRIBRAM

T H E R E A L I Z A T I O N OF M I N D

THE LANGUAGE OF BRAIN, BEHAVIOR AND MIND

When I began investigating the relationship between brain function and

behavior I was sure that this sort of research would eliminate mentalism
from psychology, much as biochemistry had eliminated vitalism from
biology. Today, the experimental results that accrued have eroded this
assurance to a point where a somewhat different position has evolved.
I want to share with philosophers my current views, in part to stimulate
discussion, in part to find out what if any major approach to the problem
I am ignoring. Thus this paper.
Let me for the sake of simplicity and clarity claim that essentially there
are currently two major theoretical approaches to the mind-brain
problem, though many different and subtle modifications of each has
been proposed. These approaches can be codified as (1) an identity
stance which in one sophisticated form encompasses the pluralistic
'multiple aspect' view popular with critical philosophers, and (2) the
dualistic stance derived from Descartes. Each position is logically
detensible and sheds some light on the problem. I will maintain here,
however, that each is incomplete and propose an alternative, different in
its content and aim. I will call this alternative the Biologist View on the
problem. But first let me briefly review some of the arguments for the
classical theories as I conceive them.
Identity theory holds that mental phenomena and physical (usually
brain processes) are identical. Many philosophers in the Anglo-American
tradition espouse this position. They point out that the language we use
to describe events may be derived from physiological or behavioral
observation or from social communication about introspective evidence.
Each language, however, deals with the same basic 'event-structure' but
comes at it from its own aspect. A plurality of aspects can thus be
conceived to portray the basic identity. Although philosophers who
espouse this view would perhaps never directly admit to this, the identity

Synthese 22 (1971) 313-322. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 1971 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
314 K A R L H. P R I B R A M

referred to by these aspects must be either 'real' or 'ideal' in the Platonic

sense. If 'real', experiments and observations ought to be able to disclose
the commonalities indicated by the aspects. This is in fact what we as
scientists try to do. However, as we have found out from studies of brain
function, what is perceived as 'real' has to be constructed by the brain's
control over the sensory process. 'Reality' as a construction is thus not
altogether different from another construction which we might call
'ideal' just because of the level of abstraction attained. But as Quine
(1960) has shown clearly, constructions are languages and languages are
to some extent mutually untranslatable. The dilemma of the identity
theorist is therefore that he can never reach that which is assumed
identical without construction which entails an additional language, an
additional aspect which though it may subsume others can never become
itself identical with them. The identity theorist thus ends up as a pluralist,
identity remaining an unachieved goal. This does not mean that identity
theory is totally wrong. Just that it cannot satisfy except as a belief that a
monistic explanation is worth striving for.

T H E W O R L D OF L A N G U A G E S

Dualistic theory does not fare much better. Since Descartes an emphasis
has been placed on the distinction between the phenomenal, subjectively
experienced, and the objective world which can be instrumentally
validated. Dualism ought not to be dismissed out of hand for it points up
an important distinction. There is a difference between the subjective
and the objective constructions we experience, a difference between the
'phenomenal' and the 'real' world. The difference lies in how each
becomes validated. Empiricists have emphasized the fact that we perceive
the world through our senses. Empirical studies enhance these perceptions
through instrumentation that augments and refines the senses. The
physical, the 'real' world is constructed by us from detailed descriptions
fed to our senses that achieve information about the world. On the other
hand, the phenomenal, the 'ideal' world is a world of ideas. We validate
experience in this world through social communication, through enact-
ment, through communicative acts. In science this distinction between
real and phenomenal becomes externalized in a distinction between
descriptive and normative, between more or less certain facts and those
THE R E A L I Z A T I O N OF MIND 315

w h i c h are c o m p l e t e l y d e p e n d e n t o n c o n v e n t i o n . A systems a p p r o a c h gives

a feel f o r t h e w a y in w h i c h t h e d i s t i n c t i o n h a s c o m e a b o u t a n d its use-
fulness. O n a n o t h e r o c c a s i o n I s t a t e d t h e m a t t e r as f o l l o w s :

... I believe that.., the behavioral, biological-social scientist interested in the mind-
body problem finds his universe to be a mirror image of the universe constructed by
the physical scientist who deals with the same problem. And it should not come as a
surprise when each of these mirror images, these isomers, the one produced by the
physicist and the one produced by the behavioral scientist, on occasion display pro-
perties that differ considerably from one another, much as do optical isomers in
organic chemistry.
I believe these images are mirrors because of differences in the direction generally
pursued from each investigator's effective starting point, his own observations. The
physical scientist for the most part, constructs his universe by ever more refined
analysis of input variables, that is, sensory stimuli to which he reacts. The form of the
reaction (cathode ray tube, solid-state device, chromatography, or galvanometer) is
unimportant, except that it provides a sufficiently broad communicative base. Con-
stancies are gradually retrieved from manipulations and observations of these input
variables under a variety of conditions. As these constants achieve stability, the
'correctness' of the views that produced them is asserted: the ['real'] physical universe
is properly described.
In the social disciplines the direction pursued is often just the reverse. Analysis is
made of action systems. The exact nature of the input to the actor (including the
observing scientist) is of little consequence, provided it has sufficient communicative
base; the effect of action on the system is the subject of analysis. It matters little
(perhaps because the cause is usually multiple [overdetermined] and/or indeter-
minable) if a currency is deflated because of fear of inflation, depression, personal
whim, or misguided economic theory. The effects of deflation can be studied, are
knowable. And once known, the action becomes corrective; the resulting stabilization,
constancy, is interpreted as evidence for the [practical, pragmatic] 'correctness' of the
action that produced the correction. Appropriate norms for the social universe
become established.
One striking difference between the two images thus formed is immediately apparent.
The physicist's macroscopic universe is the more stable, predictable one: "It does not
hurt the moon to look at it" (Eddington, 1958, p. 227). For the most part, it is as he
moves to ever more microscopic worlds that uncertainties are asserted. [By contrast]
the scientist concerned with social matters finds it just the other way around: it seem-
ingly does little harm to the man to look at him; but seriously look at his family, his
friendships, or his political-economic systems and what you had started out to look
at changes with the looking. Here indeterminacy comes to plague the macrostructure;
it is in the stabilities of microanalysis that the mirage of safety appears.

The problem can be grasped.., if it is dealt with in terms of isomeric forms of the
same event universe - isomers differing in that their structures mirror each other. Put
another way, the problem resolves itself into a meshing of the descriptive and the
normative sciences. The suggestion is that structure in descriptive science ordinarily
emerges from the analysis of the relations between systems and their subsystems; that
316 KARL H. PRIBRAM

in the normative sciences, it goes in the opposite direction: structure emerges when
the relation between a system and its 'supersystem' is studied.
If this view is correct, we should find normative statements about the nature of the
physical world when these are constructed from the examination of relations between
a set of systems and a higher order system. Is not relativity just this sort of statement?
This is not a social scientist speaking about the 'criterion problem':
The modern observer... [is] faced with the task of choosing between a number of
frames of space with nothing to guide his choice. They are different in the sense
that they frame the material objects of the world, including the observer himself,
differently; but they are indistinguishable in the sense that the world as framed in
one space conducts itself according to precisely the same laws as the world framed
in another space. Owing to the accident of having been born on a particular planet
our observer has hitherto unthinkingly adopted one of the frames; but he realizes
that this is no ground for obstinately asserting that it must be the right frame.
Which is the right franae?
At this juncture Einstein comes forward with a suggestion -
'You are seeking a frame of space which you call the right frame. In what does
its rightness consist?"
You are standing with a label in your hand before a row of packages all precisely
similar. You are worried because there is nothing to help you to decide which of the
packages it should be attached to. Look at the label and see what is written on it.
Nothing.
'Right' as applied to frames of space is a blank label. It implies that there is
something distinguishing a right frame from a wrong frame; but when we ask what
is the distinguishing property, the only answer we receive is 'Rightness', which does
not make the meaning clearer or convince us that there is a meaning (Eddington,
1958, p. 2O).
Obversely, we should find descriptive statements about the nature of the social
world when these derive from a study of the relations between a system and its sub-
systems. Doesn't the following passage fit this requirement?:
Role behavior depends first of all on the role positions that society establishes;
that is certain ways of behaving toward others are defined by different positions
(Hilgard, 1962, p. 432).
Aren't statements about roles unambiguously descriptive? (Pribram, 1965).

The p r o b l e m with d u a l i s m arises n o t when separate ' m i r r o r images' o f

the world are considered b u t when the question is asked: how do these
worlds interact? It is the same question asked of the identity position:
how can two or several linguistic constructions influence each other,
how can they be translated into some c o m m o n view?
The o r d i n a r y answer to that is that the mental c o n s t r u c t i o n intervenes
i n the c o n s t r u c t i o n of the real world. K a n t especially emphasized the role
o f u n d e r s t a n d i n g , that is, of cognitive activity, in the c o n s t i t u t i o n of all
experience - e v e n that of reality. Recently Sperry (1969) has suggested
t h a t i n t e r v e n t i o n is n o t really what occurs - he prefers the term 'super-
v e n t i o n ' to describe the superordinate aspect of the p h e n o m e n a l , the
THE REALIZATION OF MIND 317

mental. His emphasis is on the separateness of mind as a construction of

the operations of the brain. The fact, however, that these constructions
can feed back into the brain through the senses, makes the supervention
position a variant, though a recognizably distinct variant, of inter-
ventionism.
Eccles has recently espoused a somewhat similar view (1970). He wants
to abandon dualism in favor of a triadic explanation of the mind-body
issue. He follows Popper (1968) in emphasizing the third-world nature of
language and culture. Language and culture appear to have unique
characteristics which are hard to define as either mental or physical. Is a
computer program a physical entity or is it a mental representation?
Even our law courts are having difficulty in deciding. Should complex
programs which cost large sums to construct, and which are realizable in
hardware, be patentable or is society better served by protecting them
only with copyrights? Decisions have been made and reversed and at the
time of writing appeal has been made to even higher tribunals for an
answer. Popper and Eccles would claim, and rightly so, that perhaps some
new legislation is in order now that the third world, the world of ideas
has become realized in this directly useful and palpable mode. The
triadic variant of dualism has its merit but comes into difficulty as do all
variants when the interaction between the worlds is considered (see for
example, the complexity of Figure 36 in Eccles, 1970).

THE BIOLOGIST VIEW - A POSTCRITICAL APPROACH

But enough of this critical analysis of the mind-body issue. Critical

analysis is fun and can be useful as shown by the above discussions. But
critical analysis is always incomplete. The richness of the whole issue is
never truly apprehended, only glimpsed from now one, now another
aspect.
I want therefore to propose an alternative to these approaches to the
problem. I suggest that a biological approach is possible and that in its
own fashion the biological approach is satisfying in a way a philosophical
approach cannot be. Further, I suggest that the Biologist position on the
mind-body problem will change man's image of himself just as did the
Cartesian and identity views and that this change will have profound
consequences.
318 K A R L H. P R I B R A M

I noted earlier that the Biologist View on the mind-body relationship

is different in content and different in approach from the earlier views.
The biologist takes his starting point from biological material, from the
'real' world of description based on observation and experiment. The data
of the Biologist position are derived from descriptive science where the data
of the Cartesian and identity approaches are purely conceptual. From
Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" to contemporary academic philosophy the
data to be analyzed have as a rule come directly from consciousness;
whether (in dualism or idealism) from subjective experience or (in
physicalism and other forms of identity theory) from highly abstract
principles of science (such as uncertainty and indeterminancy) as philos-
ophers have understood them.
One exception must be made. Modern philosophy has recognized
behavior as an expression of mind. Behavior has been observed and
observations analyzed. But paradoxically the experimental approach of
the behaviorist has generally been ignored as providing only trivia.
Elsewhere in science minute observations and detailed experiments hold
the key to knowledge. Philosophers seem to believe that in behavioral
analysis this route is not, or at least has not been, a fruitful one (or else
they would take the behaviorist's data as their starting point for analysis).
The Biologist approach, pursued in a forthcoming volume (Pribram,
1971) does take the behaviorists' contributions seriously. A part of the
book is devoted to an analysis of some of their contributions - but the
analysis takes strength, I believe, from setting these contributions into a
larger biological context.
There is therefore a basic difference in method between the Cartesian-
critical tradition in philosophy and the Biologist View suggested here.
This difference in method accounts for a difference in content, in the data
subjected to analysis. The data of the biologist stem from science and
are largely descriptive; the data of the Cartesian-critical thinkers stem
from a philosophical tradition and are more obviously subject to con-
vention.
A third difference between the Biologist View and the Cartesian-
critical stems from the others: The Biologist position on the mind-body
problem is post-critical (Polanyi, 1960). The biologist's data everywhere
show him that structure becomes embodied in a variety of forms through
processes and transformations that must be laboriously described. The fact
THE REALIZATION OF M I N D 319

that mental structure (e.g. a phrase of music) can be 'realized' in brain

rhythms, in the score of sheet music, on a long playing record, or on tape
is not especially shocking to him. Every day he views his wife, that
strange embodiment he extends himself to know only to recognize that
she can be encoded in a DNA molecule - else how did his daughter turn
out to be such an amazing replica? In the Biologist View, multiple 'aspects'
become multiple 'realizations' or embodiments.
Embodiment is often a long drawn out stepwise process and each step
can be detailed only after a considerable amount of observation and
research. Even today, after a century of experiment, some of the steps
that lead to the realization of the genetic potential remain an enigma.
That small steps are involved is beyond doubt, however. A dramatic
example of the incremental nature of 'translating' one form into another
is given by experiments aimed at delineating the relationship between
genetic potential and culture. To this end Calhoun (1956) in the laborato-
ries at Bar Harbor, Maine studied two strains of mice. One of these
strains inhabited terraced apartments constructed of earth and herbacious
debris. Socially dominant mice maintained penthouses, the hoi polloi of
the mouse world lived below. The second strain of Calhoun's mice was
nomadic. Apartment dwelling was not for them. They dug small burrows
to come in from the rain and cold, moved on when these became soiled or
otherwise unusable. Calhoun asked the question: is apartment con-
struction and habitation an inborn trait or is this complex social or-
ganization culturally transmitted? To answer the question he took
newborn infants from each strain and cross-fostered them by the mother
of the opposite. Exchanging newborns between strains was not in itself
sufficent, however, to answer the question. Sets of cross-fostered infants
had to be separated from parental influence at weaning and raised so that
communication would occur only with unacculturated others, thus only
with mice who had also been cross-fostered. Colonies of offspring of
these cross-fostered strains were thus founded, the strains being kept
carefully separated. Biology took its course and many generations of
offspring of mice were observed.
The result of the experiment dramatically demonstrated the nature-
nurture relationship. Cross-fostered mice of the apartment dwelling
strain did not build apartments right off. The first and even the second
generation social structures developed by these mice were hardly dis-
320 K A R L H. P R I B R A M

tinguishable from those of the cross-fostered nomads. Calhoun noted

one small difference, however. Nomadic mice distributed the dirt of their
digging helter skelter. Apartment mice made neat piles of such diggings.
In fact, over successive generations, the piles became somewhat taller
and provided small hills for dominance play and struggle.
To cut a long story short, after some 15-20 generations but not before,
the apartment culture was reestablished full blown by apartment mice;
nomads remained levellers both architecturally and socially. The genetic
primordium for the apartment culture consisted of hillock construction
from diggings. The full blown complexity of the culture became actual-
ized only after generations of transmitted cultural achievement.
The achievement of a culture is thus dependent on the way in which
behavior becomes organized by the brain. No one is tempted to identify
the culture with brain, yet, in a sense, such identity is admissable.
Calhoun's apartments devolved from the structure of DNA in a strain of
mice; without their special brains these mice would not develop the apart-
ment culture. The accomplishment is in a sense already contained in the
mouse brain and in his DNA.
Yet this simple identity statement leaves one vaguely dissatisfied. In
fact, most statements of the nature-nurture issue, which is what we are
now talking about, leave too much unsaid. Brain with its capacity for
recording and remembering experience is the obvious bridge but another
problem is immediately encountered. Man's language allows him to talk
about himself and the talk is often phrased in terms of man's 'mind'.
Is it not therefore legitimate to discuss some cultural observations in
mental language? Is it not legitimate to ask whether a social hierarchy is
maintained because some individuals are made to 'feel' superior to
others ? When the individuals in the culture are mice one might hesitate
to ask the question in these terms; when a man is being studied, why not?
Thus the Biologist View on the mind-body relationship accepts it as a
biological fact, another manifestation of biology which the scientist
encounters at every turn in his explorations. The aim of the Biologist
position on this vital issue is therefore acceptance and wonder, not
critical argument.
For man's view of himself the Biologist position has at least this much
to offer. The mystery of man is biological and shared by him with other
complex organizations which are never comprehended in their totality
THE R E A L I Z A T I O N OF MIND 321

b u t o n l y piecemeal. M a n ' s b r a i n is so c o n s t r u c t e d t h a t piece b y piece he

a p p r e h e n d s the w h o l e t h r o u g h the o p e r a t i o n s o f c o d i n g a n d r e c o d i n g .
L a n g u a g e s a n d cultures, i.e. c o d e d v e r b a l a n d n o n - v e r b a l c o n s t r u c t i o n s ,
are c o n s t i t u t e d o f these pieces a n d , d u e to a m e a n s - e n d s reversal, also a
b i o l o g i c a l process, b e g i n to live lives o f their o w n :

What happens when a man, or for that matter an animal, has no need to work for a
living?.., the simplest case is that of the domesticated cat - a paradigm of affluent
living more extreme than that of the horse or the cow. All the basic needs of a domesti-
cated cat are provided for almost before they are expressed. It is protected against
danger and inclement weather. Its food is there before it is hungry or thirsty. What
then does it do? How does it pass its time?
We might expect that having taken its food in a perfunctory way it would curl up
on its cushion and sleep until faint internal stimulation gave some information of the
need for another perfunctory meal. But no, it does not just sleep. It proms the garden
and thewoods killing young birds and mice. It enjoys life in its own way. The fact that
life can be enjoyed, and is most enjoyed, by many living beings in the state of affluence
(as defined) draws attention to the dramatic change that occurs in the working of the
organic machinery at a certain stage of the evolutionary process. This is the reversal o f
the means-end relation in behavior. In the state of nature the cat must kill to live. In
the state of affluence it lives to kill. This happens with men. When men have no need
to work for a living there are broadly only two things left to them to do. They can
'play' and they can cultivate the arts. These are their two ways of enjoying life. It is
true that many men work because they enjoy it, but in this case 'work' has changed its
meaning. It has become a form of 'play'. 'Play' is characteristically an activity which
is engaged in for its own sake - without concern for utility or any further end. 'Work'
is characteristically activity in which effort is directed to the production of some
utility in the simplest and easiest way. Hence the importance of ergonomics and work
study - the objective of which is to reduce difficulty and save time. In play the activity
is often directed to attaining a pointless objective in a difficult way, as when a golfer,
using curious instruments, guides a small ball into a not much larger hole from remote
distances and in the face of obstructions deliberately designed to make the operation
as difficult as may be. This involves the reversal of the means-end relation. The 'end' -
getting the ball into the hole - is set up as a means to the new end, the real end, the
enjoyment of difficult activity for its own sake (Mace, 1961, p. 10-11).

T h u s t h e m e a n s - e n d s reversal c o m p o u n d s c o m p l e x i t y a n d t h e o r i g i n a l
o r g a n i z i n g p o t e n t i a l c a n easily b e lost sight of. Biological processes h a v e
b u i l t i n r e n e w a l m e c h a n i s m s , h o w e v e r . W h e n the a c c u l t u r a t e d s t r u c t u r e s
b e g i n to b e c o m e t o o c u m b e r s o m e o r t o o conflicting w i t h each o t h e r t h e y
are o f t e n d e g r a d e d , p r u n e d b a c k to their m o r e essential roots. C l e a r e r
v i s i o n is t h e n a t t a i n e d o f t h e basic o r g a n i z a t i o n w h i c h gave rise to the
process initially because now historical comparison can be made between
t h e p r i m i t i v e a n d t h e s o p h i s t i c a t e d r e a l i z a t i o n o f t h e process.
322 KARL H. PRIBRAM

Thus gradually wisdom is attained. In contrast to the cries of woe that

are increasingly heard as we approach the new milleninum, the biologist
immersed in the study of brain process comes up hopeful. True, we must
get on with the job before some of the cultural structures that have
suffered the means-ends reversal overwhelm their creators. But the
evidence suggests that remedial 'counter' cultures will quickly become
constituted by the same sorts of brains that initiated the original. The
power of this peculiar biological organ, especially in man, to 'mind' the
physical universe is only beginning to be engaged.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to express my genuine appreciation to Marjorie Grene, Sir John

Eccles, Wolfgang Metzger and W. V. O. Quine for discussions which
stimulated my evolving views in the directions outlined here. The whole
mind-brain-behavior issue was reopened for me by conferences held at the
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, at the Center for
Advanced Study in Theoretical Psychology at the University of Alberta,
and the Study Group for the Unity of Knowledge. The endeavour was
supported in part by N I M H Career Award M H 15, 214.

Stanford University
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