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How Does Consciousness Happen [Preview]
Two leading neuroscientists, Christof Koch and Susan Greenfield, disagree about the activity that
takes place in the brain during subjective experience
By
Christof Koch
and
Susan Greenfield
How brain processes translate to consciousness is one of the greatest un-solved questions in science. Although the scientific method can delineate events immediately after the big bang and uncover the biochemical nuts and bolts of the brain, it has utterly failed to satisfactorily explain how subjective experience is created.
As neuroscientists, both of us have made it our life’s goal to try to solve this puzzle. We share many common views, including the important acknowledgment that there is not a single problem of consciousness. Rather, numerous phenomena must be explained—in particular, self-consciousness (the ability to examine one’s own desires and thoughts), the content of consciousness (what you are actually conscious of at any moment), and how brain processes relate to consciousness and to nonconsciousness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Christof Koch is professor of cognitive and behavioral biology at the California Institute of Technology, where he teaches and has conducted research on the neuronal basis of visual attention and consciousness for more than two decades. He is an avid hiker and rock climber who has scaled several noted peaks.
HIS THEORY: For each conscious experience, a unique set of neurons in particular brain regions fires in a specific manner.
Susan Greenfield is professor of pharmacology at the University of Oxford, director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain and member of the British Parliaments House of Lords. Her research focuses on novel brain mechanisms, including those underlying neurodegenerative diseases. Her favorite pastimes are squash and dancing.
HER THEORY: For each conscious experience, neurons across the brain synchronize into coordinated assemblies, then disband.
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2 Comments
Add CommentAfter reading this interesting article I thought maybe consciousness is the result of two sets of neurons 'reading' each other back and forth (I have no idea if this is possible). An analogy would be an object placed between two parallel mirrors, or a microphone near a speaker. In such cases the feedback is continuous and cyclic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe scientific investigation, of what consciousness is, is deeply bedevilled, by the assuption, that physical reality is its source. Even the consideration, that the source may be non-physical, is not made - because of the over-riding strength of the conviction and 'belief' that 'consciousness' is a product of physical interactions and processes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mere acceptance, of the conception that all is physical, means that science examines, what are essentially, by-products of non-physical realities which can only be understood in a wider sense - outside the physical assumption!
Ask yourselves; What is NOT conscious? Science seeks to prove that consciousness, is something that arises, from that which has no consciousness. The ramifications of this massive assumption, are hardly realized.