© Human Connectome ProjectA map of neural circuits in the human brain.
Neuroscientist Christof Koch, chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, thinks he might know the answer. According to Koch, consciousness arises within any sufficiently complex, information-processing system. All animals, from humans on down to earthworms, are conscious; even the internet could be. That's just the way the universe works.
"The electric charge of an electron doesn't arise out of more elemental properties. It simply has a charge," says Koch. "Likewise, I argue that we live in a universe of space, time, mass, energy, and consciousness arising out of complex systems."
What Koch proposes is a scientifically refined version of an ancient philosophical doctrine called panpsychism - and, coming from someone else, it might sound more like spirituality than science. But Koch has devoted the last three decades to studying the neurological basis of consciousness. His work at the Allen Institute now puts him at the forefront of the BRAIN Initiative, the massive new effort to understand how brains work, which will begin next year.
Read the rest of the article at Wired.com.
"If you throw a bunch of network circuits together consciousness will magically appear!" They call that that science? They call that radical? Actually that's the plot of 75% of mediocre science-fiction stories. But that's not all, after the system becomes "conscious" it concludes humans are a threat and go on a killiing spree/cause the apocalypse. Because that is what consciousness is all about amirite? Talk about projection and making unfounded assumptions.
And the book 'Godel Escher Bach' SUCKS. Scientists have been cluelessly making sophmoric theories about consciousness for a long time, this is nothing "radical".
When I see a mainstream article about neuroscience or "consciousness", whatever they think it is, my first impulse is to just tune out. I should listen to it more often, because it's always meaningless drivel like this.