Science is currently poised for its assault on the last two great peaks of ignorance. Having struggled with immense labour across the foothills of physics and biology, it has set up camp at the foot of cosmology and consciousness. Which will be the first to go? Will we understand the origin of the universe before we understand consciousness, or will consciousness be conquered first? If the problems are truly fundamental, they will be found to be united, and the assault on either will facilitate the assault on the other. As we unravel the simplicity of the web that makes up the material world and see how it emerged from nothing, so we can expect to expose the workings of that apotheosis of complexity, the response of the brain to its input and its own output, the response we call consciousness.

LRB 21 May 1987 | PDF Download