On the present terms, human values become very much a problem for science, and in certain respects perhaps the most important problem today in the whole of science

Sperry, Roger W.

Name not available

Messages 
from the 
Laboratorv 
B'i ROGER SPERRY 
On the present terms, human values 
become very much a problem for science, 
and in certain respects perhaps the 
most important problem today in the 
whole of science 
When it comes to saying a few words about our research, 
1 am forced to hedge a bit. I am committed to not discuss 
our neurosurgical patients and their symptoms outside 
of medical or scientific settings. So T have been asking 
myself what else there might be of broad gcneral interest. 
These days we're supposed to ask, "What's relevant?" or, 
according to the new RANN formula, "What is there in 
our science that might lead to a prospectus for social 
change?" Well, I can't speak to this exactly; but I can pick 
out three facets of our work wherc the kind of message 
that we get from the laboratory seems to differ somewhat 
from that coming from the public media or society at 
large. 
Plasticity and Nature vs. Nurture 
The first of these concerns the plasticity of brain organiza- 
tion and human nature. Back when we first began to work 
in this area, neuroscience was thoroughly sold on a kind of 
super plasticity in brain function. Among other things, the 
functional interchangeability of nerves for nerve surgery 
was taken for granted. Having its wires crossed by the 
neurosurgeon was no problem at all for the brain back in 
the 1930's. 
When a damaged nerve like that supplying the muscles 
Last April, Roger W. Sperry, Hixon Professor of Psychobiology, received the 
29th annual Passano Foundation Award for achievement in medical science. 
' Messages from the Laboratory" is adapted from his speech at the dinner on 
tha: occasion. A more detailed account of the psychobiology research program 
may be found'in the November 1968 issue of Engineering and Science. 
of the face had been replaced surgically by a nearby 
healthy and more expendable nerve-like that for lifting 
the shoulder, for example-the initial effect was associated 
movements in the face whenever the subject tried to lift his 
shoulder. However, the doctrine of the day said that the 
patient need merely go home and practice in front of a 
mirror and shortly the plastic brain centcrs would undergo 
reeducation to restore normal facial expression, mediated 
now through the brain centers and nerves designcd for 
shoulder movement. 
Efforts were being n~ade  to restore function to legs 
paralyzed by spinal cord lesions by using one of the main 
nerves of the arm still connected to the brain centers. 
The arm nerve was dissected out full length, tunneled 
under the skin, and connected to the leg nerves to take 
over the function of the paralyzed limb. Only an early 
report-not the final outcome of this effort-appeared in 
the literature, perhaps for reasons that arc now under- 
standable. However, exactly the same operation was later 
reported to be a functional success in experiniental tests 
with rats during the 1930's. The motor, the sensory, and 
cven the reflex functions of the paralyzed hind limb were 
said to have been restored through the transplanted nerves 
and brain centers of the forelimb. 
The nervous system generally appeared in those days to  
be possessed of a wholesale behavioral plasticity or, as one 
authority put it, "a colossal adaptation capacity almost 
without limit." The followers of Pavlov in Russia and of 
John Watson in this country were speculating (justifiably 
it seemed) that it should be feasible with appropriate early 
training and conditioning techniques to shape human 
naturc into most any desirable mold and thus to create 
a more ideal society. 
This kind of thinking was reinforced by various other 
views of the 1930's; in particular, the prevailing doctrine 
on nerve growth told us that fiber outgrowth and the 
formation of nerve connections in the brain during devel- 
opment is essentially diffuse and nonselective. At that 
time there seemed to be no way by which the nerve 
circuits for behavior could be grown into a brain directly 
--that is, prefunetionally through inheritance without 
shaping by experience. It  was supposcd that the adjust- 
ment of brain connections depended entirely on function 
and began way back in the earliest movements of the 
fetus in utero--continuing from then on through tlidl 
and error, conditioning, learning, and experisncz. 
Our experimental findings during the 1940's brought, of 
course, a direct contradiction amounting to a 180-degree 
about-face on these matters. As we now know, nerves are 
not at all functionally interchangeable; the brain is not all 
that plastic; and the growth of nerve paths and nerve 
connections in the brain is anything but diffuse and 
nonselective. Neural circuits for behavior are definitely 
grown in, prefunctionally under genetic control, and with 
great precision in an enormously complex chemical pre- 
programmed control system. 
It is not just to recall old times that I go back through 
this history. The point is that the early views that became 
deeply entrenched all through the 1920's, '30's, and well 
into the '40's still have not been completely shaken off in 
areas outside the biomedical sciences. The lingering after- 
effects of the earlier doctrines may still be found in 
related disciplines like psychiatry, anthropology, and 
sociology and also in society at large. In other words, thc 
majority of us still have a tcndcncy to underestimate the 
genetic and other innate factors in behavior. 
This impression comes not only from the carlier work 
just mentioned, but it continues to be reinforced repeatedly 
from many different angles. For example, in regard to 
cerebral dominance and handedness in man, the latest 
theory, as proposed by Levy and Nagylaki, suggests a 
two-gene, four-allele model with one gene determining 
which hemisphere of the developing brain will be 
language-dominant and a second genc determining 
whether the preferred hand will be on the same side or 
opposite the language hemisphere. Counting the recessives 
and dominants, this gives ninc different cornbinations of 
inherited gene types or genotypes for handedness and 
cerebral dominance in man, some of the left-handed types, 
of coursc, being rnuch more resiqtant than othcrs to 
- 
reversal by training. 
Now the left and right hemispheres of the brain are each 
found to have their own specialized forms of intellect. 
The left is highly verbal and mathematical, and performs 
v;ith analytic, symbolic, computer-like, sequential logic. 
The right, by contrast, is spatial, tnute, and performs 
with a synthetic spatio-perceptual and mechanical kind 
of information processing not yet siniulateable in com- 
puters. It is very impressive and compelling in neuro- 
surgical patients with left and right hemispheres 
surgically disconnectcd to see the same person (some 
claim there are two persons in the one) approach the 
same problem, work it, and reach a solution in con- 
sistently different ways with quite different strategies, 
depending on whether the subject is using his left or his 
right hcmisphere. 
In other words, these nine genotype combinations, 
representing different balancing and loadings of these 
left and right mental factors, p~ovide just in themselves 
quite a spectrum for inherent individuality in the 
structurc of human intellect, Left-handers as a group have 
been shown to be different statistically from right-handers 
in their mental makeup-that is, in their I.Q. and other 
test profiles. Similarly, males come out differently from 
females. And females masculinized in utcro or those 
lacking one X chromosome come out differently from 
normal females. 
The degree of inherent individuality 
each of us carries around in his 
brain would probably make those 
differences seen in facial features 
or in fingerprint patterns bok 
crude by comparison 
Many kinds of tests have shown that the right hemisphere 
is particularly talented and superior to the left in visuo- 
spatial abilities. This specialty of the so-called niinor 
hernispherc, according to a current report by Bock and 
Kolakowski, is tied to a recessive sex-linked gene and is 
shown to exhibit a cross-correlation pattern of inheritance 
from parents to offspring that effectively rules out 
environment, experience, or any known theory of child 
development or nurturance. 
When we add up all this-and much more-related 
evidence, we come out with a greatly heightened respect 
and appreciation for innate individuality. The degree and 
kind of inhcrent individuality each of us carries around in 
his brain-in its surface features, its internal fiber 
organization, microstructure, chemistry-would probably 
make those differences seen in facial features or in finger- 
print patterns look crude and pale by comparison. 
The Neglected Minor Hemisphere 
Wc turn now to a second message that emerges from the 
findings on hemispheric specialization and which tells us that 
our educational system and modern society generally (with 
its very heavy emphasis on communication and onearly 
training in the three R's) discriminates against one whole 
half of the brain. I refer, of course, to the nonverbal, 
nonmathematical, minor hemisphere, which we find has 
its own perceptual, mechanical, and spatial mode of 
apprehension and reasoning. In our present school system, 
the minor hemisphere of the brain gets only the barest 
minimum of formal training, essentially nothing compared 
to the things that we do to train the left, or major, 
hemisphere. (As a curious aside here, statistics indicate 
that athletic abilities correlate with enhancement of 
visno-spatial mental ability. It follows as an interesting 
conjecture that advancement in our understanding of the 
cerebral substrates of intellect could make for a slight 
comeback in the old prestigious image of the "strong, 
silent man" of pioneer times-an image that is much 
submerged, of course, in our present-day verbal society.) 
Behaviorism in Question 
A third and final message for social change that we get 
from the world of the laboratory is acomplex one and 
cannot be summarized simply. 
One of the more important things to come out of our 
brain research in recent years-from my own standpoint, 
at least-is a modified concept of the nature of the 
conscious mind and its relation to brain mechanism. 
The new interpretation, or refonnulation, involves a 
direct break with long-established materialistic and 
behavioristic thinking that has dominated neuroscience 
for many decades. Instead of renouncing or ignoring 
consciousness, the new interpretation gives full recognition 
to inner conscious awareness as an im~ortant high-level 
- 
Roger Sperry, Hxon Professor of Psychob~ology. H s  research directive force or property in the brain mechanism. The 
strongly suggests that our present educational system-with its 
heavy emphasis on early training in the three R.s-discrimlnates conscious mind no longer is set aside as a passive correlate, 
against the brain's minor hemisphere, which has its own perceptual, but becomes instead an essential part of the brain process 
mechanical, and spatial mode of apprehension and reasoning. endowed with causal potency. The phenomena of inner 
experience are conceived to be "emergent" properties 
of brain activity and become causal determinants in 
brain function. 
On these new terms consciousness is given a use, a 
reason for being, and for having been evolved in a 
material world. Not only does the brain's nenro- 
physiology determine the mental effects, as has generally 
been agreed, but now in addition the emergent mental 
operations are conceived in turn to control the component 
Messages from 
the Laboratory . . . cor~tinuerl 
neurophysiology through their higher organizational 
properties and the universal principle of the power of the 
wholc over its parts. 
This revised interpretation, since its appearance about ten 
years ago, has gained considerable acceptance and support. 
After more than 50 years of strict avoidance on 
Behaviorist principles, in the last 5 years, tcrms such as 
"n~ental imagery" and visual, verbal, auditory "images," 
and the like havc exploded into wide usage as explanatory 
constructs in the literature on cognition, perception, and 
other higher functions. 
The revised interpretation brings the conscious mind into 
the causal sequence in human decision-making-and 
therefore into behavior generally-and thus back into thc 
realm d experimental science from which it has long 
been excluded. This swing in psychology and neuro- 
science away from hard-core materialism and reductionism 
back toward a new, more acceptable brand of melitalism 
tends now to restore to the scientific image of human 
nature some of the dignity, freedom, and other humai~istie 
attributes of which it has long been deprived by the 
behavioristic approach. 
Old metaphysical dualisms and the seemingly irreconcil- 
able paradoxes that formerly prcvailed between thc 
realities of inner experience on the one hand and those 
of experimental brain scicnce on the other become 
recor~ciled today in a single comprehensive and unifying 
view of mind, brain, and man in nature. Within the brain, 
we pass conceptually in a single continuum from the 
brain's subnuclear particles on up (through atonis and 
molecules to cells and nerve circuit systems without 
concciousness) to cerebral processes with consciousness. 
T h e ~ c  hanging concepts of mind substantially alter the 
general image of man and his role as drawn in the 
Rehasinri5t tradition, and also bring other tnajor 
departures from traditional materialist doctrine. 
When subjectivc values are conceived to have objective 
cnmequences in the brain, they no longer need be set off 
in a realm outside the domain of science. The old adage 
that sciencc deals with facts, not with values, and that 
value judgments lie outside the realm of science no longer 
applies in the new framework. 
Instead of separating science from values, the present 
interpretation (when all the various ramifications and 
logical implications are followed through) leads to a 
stand in which sciencc becomes the best source, method, 
and authority for determining ultimate value and those 
ultimate ethical axioms and guideline beliefs to live and 
govern by. By science here, 1 refer broadly to the knowl- 
edge, understanding, insight, and perspectives that come 
from science. But more particularly I am thinking of the 
principles for validity and reliability and credibility of the 
scicntific way as an approach to truth-insofar as the 
human brain can comprehend it. In other words what has 
been called "Scientism" gets a new h s t  now, with added 
dinlensio~~s and a whole new look. 
On the present terms human values become very much a 
problem for science, and in certain respects pcrhaps the 
most important problenl today in the whole of science. 
Viewed objectively, human value priorities stand out as 
the most strategically powerful causal agent now shaping 
events on the surface of the globe. More than any other 
causal system with which science now concerns itself, 
thc human value factor is going to determine the future. 
1 tend to rate the problem of human values Number One 
for science in the 1970's, above the more concrete crisis 
problems like poverty, population, energy, or pollution on 
the following grounds: First, all thesc crisis conditions are 
man-made and very largely products of human values. 
Further, they are not correctable on any long-term basis 
without first changing the underlying human value 
priorities involvcd. And finally, the more strategic way to 
remedy these conditions is to go after the social value 
priorities directly in advance, rather than waiting for thc 
value changes to he forced by changing conditions. Other- 
wise we are tloomed from here on to live always on thc 
margin5 of intolerability, for it is not until things get 
rather intolerable that the voting majority gets around to 
chmgit~g its established values. It is apparent, further, 
that other approaches to our crisis problem5 already 
receive plenty of attention. It  is the human value factor 
that has been selectively neglected and evcn considered, 
on principle, to be "off limits" to scicnce. 
The upshot of all this would in effect prolnotc science 
into a higher social role above that of the provision of 
better things for better living--or the prediction. control, 
and understanding of natural phenomena. Science on 
these tcrms becomes a source and arbiter of values and 
belief systems at the highest level-man's best channel 
for gaining an intimate understandingd and rapport with 
those forces that control the universe and created man. C 


Messages from the Laboratory

http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3008/1/lab.pdf

Messages from the Laboratory

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Name not available