EVOLUTION, COGNITION, CONSCIOUSNESS, 

 INTELLIGENCE, AND CREATIVITY 



It is a great honor to be invited to present the James Arthur Lec- 

 ture for 2003, and to contribute to a series that has shed light on so 

 many aspects of brain evolution, structure and function. I have read 

 a number of the earlier lectures and have been impressed by their 

 collective breadth. They have spanned a spectrum that stretches from 

 the size and shape of the brain down to the interactions between the 

 nerve cells of which the brain is composed. Many of the presenta- 

 tions have addressed one or other aspect of consciousness, and the 

 related issue of intelligence. I shall follow their lead. 



There has been a growing feeling in recent years that the mystery 

 of consciousness might be amenable to a scientific solution. That 

 would be a spectacular achievement, because consciousness ranks 

 alongside the origin of the universe, the unification of the four fun- 

 damental forces and the nature of time, as one of the last great 

 intellectual challenges. And it enjoys a special place even in that 

 celebrated company, because it is the phenomenon most closely re- 

 lated to us. Indeed, one could say that consciousness is us. As Rene 

 Descartes famously put it: Cogito, ergo sum — / think, therefore I 

 am. And thinking is something we all value. During his own James 

 Arthur Lecture, Matt Cartmill (1996) asked how much payment any- 

 one in the audience would require for taking a drug known to per- 

 manently remove the capacity for thought, while leaving all other 

 bodily functions intact. There were no volunteers. 



The magnitude of the challenge facing those who would elucidate 

 consciousness must not be underestimated. A full explanation of the 

 phenomenon would require more than just an account of how it 

 evolved and how it arises as a consequence of the brain's anatomy 

 and physiology. One would also have to show what advantage it 

 confers. And beyond that, there would be the particularly difficult 

 job of scientifically characterising the sensations and emotions that 

 seem to be the phenomenon's hallmark. David Chalmers (1996) was 

 not exaggerating when he called those latter issues the hard problem 

 of consciousness, and he warned that they might be fundamentally 

 unsolvable. 



