How cool - a newspaper that actually enlists leading thinkers to debate big issues. And there is no bigger issue than consciousness, the last frontier of our efforts to understand ourselves. We know little bits and pieces that make us a little too confident in our knowledge, but we still have only theories of consciousness, not answers.
The Koch video is dated 2010, but Greenfield's response is from 2012 - uh, okay, sure. Damn, two years. Oh well, the zombie Smurf is priceless.
If the videos won't play, follow the included links to the original posts - Koch speaks for a bit over 11 minutes, and Greenfield for around 27 minutes.
What makes us conscious?
Neuroscientist Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology discusses how the brain generates consciousness, the differences between cognitive states, and how information theory could affect the iPhone
View the second half of the debate, in which Susan Greenfield of Oxford University puts her case, here (see below)
Thursday 7 October 2010
* * * * * * *Susan Greenfield tackles the hard problem: consciousness
In the second half of a debate on the nature of consciousness at the Royal Institution in London, Susan Greenfield from Oxford University disputes whether there are discrete centres of consciousness in the brain, and addresses how the brain generates this most subjective of biological phenomena
Watch neuroscientist Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology talk about consciousness in the first part of the debate here (see above)
Friday 22 June 2012
Interesting stuff
ReplyDelete