In Search of Psyche

To a beginner in science back in the mid-1980s, it seemed that there could be no more challenging problem at which to aim—as a long-term, ultimate goal kind of thing—than that of consciousness and the mind-brain relation, more acceptably expressed in those days as the problem of the “neural correlates of conscious experience.” A naive beginner, of course, could hardly expect to approach a final solution, but it is always reassuring to feel that one’s efforts are at least aimed in the general direction of something that might be of ultimate importance. Meantime, as a “brain researcher,” one could find plenty of lesser but entirely respectable and more researchable corollary problems along the way, such as perception, learning, and memory.