How does consciousness happen?
How does consciousness happen?
复制标题
意识是如何发生的？
作者：
C. Koch;S. Greenfield
大脑过程如何转化为意识是科学中最大的未解决问题之一。虽然科学方法可以描绘出大爆炸之后的事件，揭示大脑的生化细节，但它完全无法令人满意地解释主观经验是如何产生的。
作为神经科学家，我们两人都把解决这个难题作为自己的人生目标。我们有许多共同的观点，包括重要的承认，没有一个单一的意识问题。相反，许多现象必须解释，特别是自我意识（检查自己的欲望和思想的能力），意识的内容（你在任何时候实际意识到的东西），以及大脑过程如何与意识和无意识相关。
那么解决方案从哪里开始开始呢？神经科学家对大脑的内部运作还没有足够的了解，无法确切地解释意识是如何从神经元的电和化学活动中产生的。因此，重要的第一步是确定意识的最佳神经元关联（NCC）-与特定意识体验相匹配的大脑活动。当你意识到你看到的是一只狗时，你大脑中的哪些神经元发生了什么？当你突然感到悲伤时，你的大脑发生了什么？我们都在试图找到个体可能拥有的每一种主观体验的神经对应物。这就是我们的不同之处。
2006年夏天，在圣安东尼奥的精神科学基金会的赞助下，我们在牛津大学进行了一场激烈的辩论，在此期间，我们对最好的NCC产生了分歧。从那时起，我们继续探讨和挑战彼此的观点，这是一次对话，导致了这篇文章。尽管如此，我们还是被一个基本的共同点所束缚：我们的观点主要来自神经科学，而不仅仅是哲学。我们都考虑了大量的神经科学、临床和心理学数据，正是从这些观察中，我们的论点出现了。
How brain processes translate to consciousness is one of the greatest un-solved questions in science. Although the scientific method can delineate events immediately after the big bang and uncover the biochemical nuts and bolts of the brain, it has utterly failed to satisfactorily explain how subjective experience is created.
As neuroscientists, both of us have made it our life's goal to try to solve this puzzle. We share many common views, including the important acknowledgment that there is not a single problem of consciousness. Rather, numerous phenomena must be explained—in particular, self-consciousness (the ability to examine one's own desires and thoughts), the content of consciousness (what you are actually conscious of at any moment), and how brain processes relate to consciousness and to nonconsciousness.
So where does the solution begin? Neuroscientists do not yet understand enough about the brain's inner workings to spell out exactly how consciousness arises from the electrical and chemical activity of neurons. Thus, the big first step is to determine the best neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC)—the brain activity that matches up with specific conscious experiences. When you realize you are seeing a dog, what has happened among which neurons in your brain? When a feeling of sadness suddenly comes over you, what has happened in your brain? We are both trying to find the neuronal counterpart of each subjective experience that an individual may have. And this is where we differ.
Our disagreement over the best NCC emerged during a lively debate between us at the University of Oxford in the summer of 2006, sponsored by the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio. Since then, we have continued to explore and challenge each other's views, a dialogue that has resulted in the article here. We are bound, nonetheless, by one fundamental commonality: our views stem primarily from neuroscience, not just philosophy. We both have considered a tremendous amount of neuroscientific, clinical and psychological data, and it is from these observations that our arguments arise.