Ullin Thomas Place was an unusual type of organ donor; he gave his brain not to science but to philosophy.
The same philosopher, the place of English origin spent his life thinking about the brains: what they are, how they work and how they produce conscious experience.
In his will, Place bequeathed his brain to the University of Adelaide, where he had once taught, requesting that he be placed in the exhibition with a naughty legend: “This brain contained the consciousness of UT Place? “
After Place’s death in 2000, the university honored his wish in an equally mischievous way, advising visitors that his brain organ can be seen “by appointment only.”
Place lectured at the University of Adelaide from 1951 to 1954, before returning to England, where he died in 2000. (Provided by: Thomas Place / utplace.uk)
In the early 1950s, the University of Adelaide was the nerve center of an intellectual revolution, and Place and his colleague JJC Smart were at the forefront.
They became prominent figures in a movement called Australian Materialism, which sought to address the question of how conscious experience of brain processes arises, of how the mind relates to matter.
Place argued that there was a strict identity between the two kingdoms, and wrote in one of his many articles that “mental processes, mental events, or mental states are nothing more and nothing less than physical processes, events, or states of the mind. brain “.
“[Place] He believed that everything should be explained, thought and perception and introspection and perceived colors, as well as the functioning of the brain, “said James Franklin, a professor at the University of NSW who wrote a book on history. of philosophy in Australia.
This statement may seem like a mere truism, but anyone who follows this argument to certain conclusions is bound to get hurt by a thorny issue: how does a 1.3-kilogram piece of biomaterial produce consciousness and sensation?
If all this makes you turn your head, rest assured that some of the best and brightest brains (or minds) in philosophy have failed to find a satisfying and universally accepted solution.
“It’s fun, but you’re chasing your tail. That’s philosophy for you,” Professor Franklin said.
Visiting his father’s brain
When UT Place moved to Adelaide to work at the university in 1951, he was accompanied by his young family, including his son Thomas.
More than 60 years later, Thomas, who has spent most of his life in the Netherlands, returned to Adelaide and visited his father’s brain.
Thomas Place paid a visit to his father’s brain at the University of Adelaide in 2016. (Provided by: Thomas Place / utplace.uk)
He remembers talking about his father’s decision to donate the organ.
“He told me that was his intention,” Thomas recalled.
“I had no problem with that, I could understand why he did it, that was how it was.
“Was that kind of a joke, or more serious? I think they were both.”
Thomas has created a website in honor of his father’s work, which he said influenced his own decision to study psychology.
“People always said‘ He’s following in his father’s footsteps, ’” Thomas said.
Place with his son Thomas in Adelaide in 1953. (Provided by: Thomas Place / utplace.uk)
He said his father’s view of the human brain was complicated: he didn’t want to reduce everything about human life to “what’s going on in the brain.”
But on the question of mental life he was a materialist, who argued that the mind was not separate from the body.
“He refused to accept the dualistic position: that there are two kinds of things, mental things and material things,” Thomas explained.
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The counterargument suggests that the mind is a myth
One of the most enduring puzzles in philosophy is the problem of the brains themselves.
If brains are made of matter and matter is all there is, then how can you explain something as intangible as seeing red in purely mechanical terms?
“The perception of red doesn’t seem to be found by examining a brain,” Professor Franklin said.
This problem is considered by some to be so insoluble that they have rejected materialism and sought completely other explanations.
Australian philosopher David Chalmers has promoted the view that, like space and time, consciousness is a basic property of reality.
“We will not reduce consciousness to something physical,” he said.
“It’s a primitive component of the universe.”
The most radical counterargument to this view is called eliminative materialism; his followers believe that the mind is a myth and consciousness an illusion, a kind of elaborate trick that the brain plays on itself.
Place’s decision to show his brain was partly a joke, partly serious, his son said. (Provided by: Thomas Place / utplace.uk)
Unfortunately, Place’s brain, serenely locked in its glass container, doesn’t offer many clues.
In fact, it’s hard to believe that something so abjectly inanimate has ever been associated with a living, sentimental, and thinking entity called UT Place.
“It was weird,” Thomas said of his encounter with his father’s brain.
“I didn’t have the feeling of ‘I’m in touch with my dad now.'”
Place’s son, Thomas, and daughter-in-law Margo, next to the philosopher’s brain. (Provided by: Thomas Place / utplace.uk)