13 - Source and Limits of Human Intellect

Summary

The brain is believed to be the physical source of thought. But can the human brain understand itself? Are there limits to human intellect? If so, what are they and how will we know when we have reached them?

This essay is based on an article originally published in the journal Daedalus, 109(2), in the spring of 1980.

1

Not so long ago the eye was thought to be a somewhat miraculous organ functioning in a more prosaic body. We smile indulgently at the naïveté of our intellectual grandparents. Today, though we regard our eyes with great respect, few attribute magical properties to them. The same might be said for kidneys, the heart, and other organs. We appreciate their importance, we may understand how they work, we may not be able to build them as efficiently as nature does, yet we hardly regard them as mysterious.

The same calm does not seem to prevail when we consider the brain. Although the brain could be regarded in the same way we regard the heart, the eye, or a muscle, the functions associated with the physical entity “brain” such as thought, consciousness, and awareness of self – those most precious human characteristics – are not as easily attributed to the earthy material in which they may or may not originate, as the function of pumping might be attributed to the heart.