The Missing Self, or: 10 Ways How To Be A Zombie

The article by Crick and Koch is undoubtedly a first: for Nature to cave in so spectacularly to the so-called ‘Framework’ proffered to them in the name of neuroscience. But unfortunately the Framework gets nowhere fast, since it has no real teeth to get at the underlying phenomenon of consciousness itself. The Framework needs to feel right ‘from the inside’ – consciousness is surely about our inner experience!

Read more... Comments (1)

A commentary of “A framework for consciousness” by Francis Crick and Christof Koch

The paper by Crick and Koch presents their updated perspective on the brain in relation to consciousness. It may let us gauge what we do not yet know, as much as calling attention to some specific proposals.

Let me illustrate. The paper raised two questions in my mind.

Read more... Comments (1)

Reviewed by Thomas W. ClarkIn neuroscientific circles, it is simply commonsense physicalism that the brain conducts business on its own. It doesn’t need a further, non-physical agent to orchestrate the dauntingly complex operations that constitute awareness, cognition, and control of behavior. Nevertheless, it’s also become clear that for us to successfully navigate the world, the brain must conjure a stable sense of a self, acting within an environment represented as distinctly non-self (for example Antonio Damasios “The feeling of what happens”. Even though there’s no one in charge of its operations, the brain generates a strong intuition of personal agency, borne out by the obvious fact that persons accomplish all sorts of things in all manner of ways.

Read more... Comments (2)