This article comes from the WeChat public account: Neural Reality (ID: goodness) , author: M.A & B.M, the original title: “where in the mind”, the title figure comes from: vision China
In 1976, Francis Crick (Francis Crick) came to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, where It overlooks the sparkling, blue-green sea, and the sky like a marshmallow overhead, like a paradise on the Pacific Ocean. Crick and his colleagues discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, which unveiled the mysterious veil of life and revealed its physical nature. He also won the Nobel Prize for this. Crick hopes to make a similar contribution to consciousness-related research. He believes that if the matter is strange enough to constitute the life code of a living being, it may be the mystery of the living mind.
As an inseparable thing with us, consciousness seems to be easier to explain than the origin of the universe. It seems less difficult to imagine that basic physical elements, such as atoms and molecules, can produce subjective experiences. Things are not so simple. No wonder, for a long time, people have firmly believed that consciousness is the function of the soul, and science can’t help it. As a result, consciousness has become the most powerful weapon for vitalists (vitalism) . They claim that life depends on immaterial, nonphysical forces. As a staunch defender of materialism, from the moment he arrived in California, Crick was determined to break the misunderstanding of consciousness and to open a way to solve the mystery of consciousness.
Francis Crick Picture source: wikipedia
In the last 30 years of Crick’s life, he revolutionized the field of neuroscience with the help of molecular biology. He often challenges top elites in the field at tea parties, and publishes articles on his “Amazing Hypothesis”, claiming that consciousness is entirely a brain product. In 2005, Crick and his friend and colleague Christopher Koch (Christof Koch) published the last post Article-“What is the function of the screen?” “. This article rekindled scientists’ interest in how the brain generates consciousness [1]. The screen body is made up of a series of neurons in the shape of a hammock. The article proposes that the screen body is a key area for consciousness generation because it receives “input information from almost all other cortical areas and sends information back to almost all cortical areas.” The cortex is the pleated surface of the brain and is responsible for various consciousness characteristics, including sensation and personality. This promising idea will then spur in-depth research into the nature of consciousness and the role of interesting screens to this day.
Where is consciousness hiding?
Before Crick specifically pointed out the screen body, many parts of the brain were already considered to be the center of consciousness. In the mid-17th century, René Descartes (René Descartes) pioneered his infamous hypothesis that “the core of the soul is in the center of the brain In a small gland, “which is the pineal gland. Descartes believes that the soul and the body are completely separated, so the problem he wants to solve is how the two interact. It’s easy to imagine the interaction between tangible objects, such as bowling balls and pins, but thinking is seemingly invisible. It’s hard to imagine that intangible things take up space or exert forces—how exactly do seemingly immaterial things interact with matter? How does a martini affect our thinking?
To answer these questions, Descartes borrowed the ancient Greek physician Galen.