Assess the validity of Crick's 'Astonishing Hypothesis'.
Assess the validity of Crick's 'Astonishing Hypothesis'.
In his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick charts his efforts in the investigation of consciousness. Crick believes passionately that the only trustworthy source of knowledge is scientific investigation. (Crick, 1994). To assess the validity of Crick's theory, we will firstly have to evaluate the evidence that consciousness is no more than the product of the millions upon millions of nervous impulses churning away inside our brains and then evaluate opposing theories.
Francis Crick proclaims, "we... need to discover the neural correlates of consciousness . . . No longer need one spend time attempting . . . to endure the tedium of philosophers perpetually disagreeing with each other. Consciousness is now largely a scientific problem." (Crick, 1996, p. 486). Neural Correlates of Consciousness are specific systems in the brain that correlate directly with states of conscious experience. To do this Crick concentrates on " . . . visual consciousness rather than other forms, because humans are very visual animals and our visual percepts are especially vivid and rich in information." (Crick & Koch, 1998).
Crick, in his research, concentrated on finding a "single conscious interpretation of the visual scene, in order to eliminate hesitation." (Crick, 1998). His experiments include the research of classical blindsight. This is where a person can indicate the direction of movement of a spot of light over a certain range of speed, while denying he/she can see anything at all. The results show that this is not due to chance and shows there is likely to be some kind of visual consciousness, although there is still a great deal of research that needs to be done in this area. (Crick & Koch, 1998).
As a reductionist, Crick 'reduces' the mind/brain into a 'thing' that can be studied scientifically. He does not attempt to study or define consciousness, as this cannot be explained. This reductionist view is a very limited stance to take as everything is broken down into its simplest form. Also, Crick does not deem it necessary to give a definition of consciousness, so how are we to understand what is meant by visual 'consciousness'. Every person has a different idea of what consciousness means so his methods may seem a little confusing.
In Crick's defence though, there are ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
As a reductionist, Crick 'reduces' the mind/brain into a 'thing' that can be studied scientifically. He does not attempt to study or define consciousness, as this cannot be explained. This reductionist view is a very limited stance to take as everything is broken down into its simplest form. Also, Crick does not deem it necessary to give a definition of consciousness, so how are we to understand what is meant by visual 'consciousness'. Every person has a different idea of what consciousness means so his methods may seem a little confusing.
In Crick's defence though, there are many supporters of this view, including Daniel C Dennett. Dennett is thoroughly materialist in that he reduces 'consciousness' to physiological events in the brain, as it perceives visual stimuli. The existence of consciousness -- as some unified phenomenon or single type of thing -- Dennett suggests, is an illusion, similar to the case of Love. (Dennet, 1993). Also supporting the reductionist theory is Carl Sagan, who proclaims, "My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings - what we sometimes call 'mind' - are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more." (1978). All of these ideas leave a lot to be considered as they do not take into account the millions of people who see love as 'real' and have strong religious beliefs.
Many people, including the founder of Cartesian dualism, Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), hold the opposition to this view. Descartes begins his discussion of mind by first disregarding everything that he can call into doubt. After this, Descartes is left only with the adage that 'I cannot doubt that I am doubting.' From this conclusion, Descartes states that some entity must be doing this doubting, and claims that this entity is his mind. There has been a lot of research to support the dualist theory, including research by Sir John Eccles.
Eccles, one of the worlds leading neurophysiologists, is a strong supporter of dualism. Eccles carried out research which led him eventually to take on a form of interactionism, very much like that proposed by Descartes. Eccles, observing experiments carried out by H. H. Kornhuber in 1974, concluded that there are voluntary movements, which are initiated freely, independently of any determining influences. This tells us there is such a thing as free will. In his experiments Kornhuber discovered the existence of electrical potentials generated in the cerebral cortex following the exercise of will to action and prior to the actual performance of motor activity. Between the conscious act of will and the activity resulting from it, he consistently observed a measurable interval lasting for a few seconds or less. (Popper & Eccles, 1977). The experiments carried out seem to show that the mind controls the brain and not the other way round, supporting the evidence that there is some kind of non-physical entity.
One argument against dualism is explanatory impotence. Materialists can explain anything physical through scientific study, whereas dualists can explain nothing because no theory has ever been formulated. Also, the materialist point of view is easier to prove because there is no doubt that physical matter exists, while nonphysical matter is currently a hypothesis. This argument seems very illogical. Theories should be chosen because one makes more sense to you, not because one has a smaller number of ideas within it. Materialism just removes the problems of relatedness between mind and body by eliminating the spiritual altogether.
In conclusion, all of this reiterates what instinctively we all seem to know, that is to say, that we are self-governing beings, not the slaves of our physiology. There is no clear answer as to where the mind comes from and so dualism may not have as much support as materialism. But what is appealing about dualism is the belief in the soul and body, spirit and matter. It allows one to at least consider this notion along with many others, of the spiritual realm. Arguably the inner workings of our mind require a deeper understanding than that of Crick, as summarized by Eccles; "Our coming-to-be is as mysterious as our ceasing-to-be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? Cannot life be lived as a challenging and wonderful adventure that has meaning yet to be discovered?" (1970, p. 83).
References
Crick, F. (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. London:
Simon & Schuster.
Crick, F. (1996) Visual perception: rivalry and consciousness. Nature 379 (pp. 485-486).
Crick, F., & Koch, C. (1998) Consciousness and Neuroscience. Koch Publications. Available:
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97.html.
Dennett, Daniel C. (1993) "Explaining Consciousness". In Consciousness Explained. Penguin
Group. (pp. 21-42).
Eccles, John C. (1970) Facing Reality. New York: Springer-Verlag. (p. 83).
Popper, K., & Eccles, J. (1977) The Self and Its Brain. Berlin: Springer International. (p. 283).
Sagan, C. (1977). The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human
Intelligence. New York: Random House.
Sarah Hosegood
