Revisit WNYC's Radiolab attempt to answer one of life's eternal questions.

Here's a summary from WNYC.org

"What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. How? That’s our question this hour. We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains. Featured: author Steven Johnson, fire-flyologists John and Elizabeth Buck, biologist E.O. Wilson, Ant expert Debra Gordon, mathematician Steve Strogatz, economist James Surowiecki, and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch."

Emergence

Check out more Radiolab at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

- or their free Podcast in the iTunes Store. Enjoy.

Brain Science Podcast #22 is an interview with Dr. Christof Koch of Cal Tech, one of the pioneers in the neurobiological study of consciousness. About two decades ago when Koch and Francis Crick began looking for what they called the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), such a quest was considered controversial, but now the field is increasing in popularity. In our interview we talked a little about his book, The Quest for Consciousness, as well as his on-going research and his thoughts about what the future might bring. (Click here for the transcript of this interview.)

Show Notes

Here is a list of some of the topics we discussed:

• Why Francis Crick was an outstanding mentor and colleague
• A Working definition of consciousness
• How consciousness relates to awareness
• What are neural correlates of consciousness
• Why vision is the focus of Koch's research
• The search for the "footprints" of consciousness
• The role of functional imaging and the use of monkeys
• Neurons-"the atoms of perception"
• Why we need a theory of consciousness
• The role of the frontal lobes in consciousness
• Is consciousness an emergent property?
• What about zombies?
• Why do we need consciousness?
• Will artificial intelligence become conscious?
• The hard problem: how does the brain generate subjective experience (qualia)

Links:

Christof Koch's homepage

The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach (2004)

Listen to the Episode Now

Transcript by Diane Jacobs

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