To understand brains

``How do we go about understanding brains?'' That was the fundamental question confronting the session, ``To Understand Brains. . . ,'' at the 1968 IEEE International Convention. This report on the views of eight session participants shows a strong consensus on three major points: first, that the popular analogy between brains and computers is ill-taken and perhaps misleading; second, that very little is understood about nervous system function, despite the accumulation of seas of data, and that present understanding is relatively restricted to events in the peripheral sensory systems; third, that the epistemological problem-what is really meant by ``understanding'' the nervous system-is especially difficult with respect to the staggering complexities in a system composed of ten billion cells, each of which might be regarded as a kind of hybrid microcomputer in itself. The cry for new concepts of the nervous system was especially strong, and though the participants did not regard the endeavor to understand brains as absolutely hopeless, their stress on the magnitude of the problems made their ``realistic'' appraisals seem quite pessimistic.