创造意识比理解意识更容易
在去世之前,弗朗西斯·克里克还邀请我到他家中讨论屏状体(claustrum),这个皮层下的神秘细胞薄层接收来自许多皮层区域的投射,然后再反向投射回去。尽管克里克当时已身患绝症,但仍然专注于完成他的最后一篇论文,即屏状体因其中心地位而负责意识统一的假说。只有少数研究人员曾研究过屏状体,他几乎给他们中的每个人都打过电话,寻求进一步的信息。这次拜访是我最后一次见到他。弗朗西斯于2004年7月28日去世时,仍然在努力撰写他最后一篇论文[24] 的手稿,试图完成他对意识起源的研究。
在他和詹姆斯·沃森于1953年发现DNA结构的50年后,人类基因组测序的项目完成了。克里克告诉我,他从来没有想过人类能够完成这一壮举。50年后,我们距离探清意识问题还有多远呢?届时,我们将拥有与我们互动的机器,就像我们现在通过语音、手势和面部表情与他人互动一样。创造意识要比完全理解它来得容易。
我怀疑,我们是否可以通过首先了解无意识的处理过程——我们看到、听到和行动时认为理所当然的一切——来加快进度。我们已经在理解激励系统方面取得了进展(激励系统对我们如何做决定产生了强烈的影响);还有注意力系统(这些系统有助于指导我们在现实世界中搜寻信息)。随着对管理感知、决策和规划的大脑机制的深入了解,理解意识这个问题可能会像《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》中的柴郡猫一样消失,只留下一个大大的笑容。[25]
- 本章引自T. J. Sejnowski, “Consciousness,” Daedalus 144, no. 1 (2015): 123–132. 参阅Francis H. C. Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1988): Bob Hicks, “Kindra Crick’s Mad Pursuit,” Oregon Art Watch , December 3, 2015.
http://www.orartswatch.org/kindracricks-mad-pursuit/.
- 现在还没有统一的关于“意识”(consciousness)的科学定义,意识被用来指代许多不同的现象。对这个术语广义上的理解,包括保持清醒的状态,对自己周围环境的认知,对事物的认知或感知,以及大脑对自身和外界的认知。
- F. Crick, “The Function of the Thalamic Reticular Complex: The Searchlight Hypothesis,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 81, no. 14 (1984):4586–4590.
- F. Crick and C. Koch, “The Problem of Consciousness,” Scientific American 267,no. 3 (1992): 10–17: F. Crick and C. Koch, “Constraints on Cortical and Thalamic Projections: The No-Strong-Loops Hypothesis,” Nature 391, no. 6664 (1998): 245–250: F. Crick and C. Koch, “A Framework for Consciousness,” Nature Neuroscience 6, no. 2 (2003): 119–126: and F. Crick, C. Koch, G. Kreiman, and I. Fried,“Consciousness and Neurosurgery,” Neurosurgery 55, no. 2 (2004): 273–281.
- F. Crick and C. Koch, “Are We Aware of Neural Activity in Primary Visual Cortex?”Nature 375, no. 6527 (1995): 121–123: C. Koch, M. Massimini, M. Boly, and G.Tononi, “The Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Progress and Problems,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17 (2016): 307–321.
- R. Q. Quiroga, L. Reddy, G. Kreiman, C. Koch, and I. Fried, “Invariant Visual Representation by Single Neurons in the Human Brain,” Nature 435, no. 7045(2005): 1102–1107.
- 这种比例是通过对不同神经元的放电速率的比例来定量的。——译者注
- K. Deisseroth and M. J. Schnitzer, “Engineering Approaches to Illuminating Brain Structure and Dynamics,” Neuron 80, no. 3 (2013): 568–577.
- V. Mante, D. Sussillo, K. V. Shenoy, and W. T. Newsome, “Context-Dependent Computation by Recurrent Dynamics in Prefrontal Cortex,” Nature 503, no. 7474(2013): 78–84.
- BRAIN Working Group, BRAIN 2025: A Scientiific Vision, Report to the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH (Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, June 5, 2014), 36.
https://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/pdf/BRAIN2025_508C.pdf.
- Patricia Smith Churchland and Terrence J. Sejnowski, The Computational Brain ,2nd ed.
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), 183, 221.
- L. Chang and D. Y. Tsao. “The Code for Facial Identity in the Primate Brain,” Cell 169, no. 6(2017): 1013–1028.e14.
- D. A. Bulkin and J. M. Groh, “Seeing Sounds: Visual and Auditory Interactions in the Brain,” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 16 (2006): 415–419.
- 闪光滞后幻觉表现为主体对突现客体的位置判断滞后。——译者注
- D. M. Eagleman and T. J. Sejnowski, “Motion Integration and Postdiction in Visual Awareness,” Science 287, no. 5460 (2000): 2036–2038.
- 参阅Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, and Sandra Blakeslee, Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions (New York: Henry Holt,2010)。
- S. Dehaene and J.-P. Changeux, “Experimental and Theoretical Approaches to Conscious Processing,” Neuron 70, no. 2 (2011): 200–227.
- S. Moeller, T. Crapse, L. Chang, and D. Y. Tsao, “The Effect of Face Patch Microstimulation on Perception of Faces and Objects,” Nature Neuroscience 20, no. 6(2017): 743–752.
- J. Parvizi, C. Jacques, B. L. Foster, N. Withoft, V. Rangarajan, K. S. Weiner, and K.Grill-Spector, “Electrical Stimulation of Human Fusiform Face-Selective Regions Distorts Face Perception,” Journal of Neuroscience 32, no. 43 (2012): 14915–14920.
- BRAIN Working Group, BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision , pp. 6, 35, 48.
- Sejnowski, “What Are the Projective Fields of Cortical Neurons?”
- L. Chukoskie, J. Snider, M. C. Mozer, R. J. Krauzlis, and T. J. Sejnowski, “Learning Where to Look for a Hidden Target,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, supp. 2 (2013): 10438–10445.
- T. J. Sejnowski, H. Poizner, G. Lynch, S. Gepshtein, and R. J. Greenspan,“Prospective Optimization,” Proceedings of the IEEE 102, no. 5 (2014): 799–811.
- 在他去世后,他的同事克里斯托弗·科赫(Christof Koch)继续完成了这项工作。F. C. Crick and C. Koch, “What Is the Function of the Claustrum?”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B360, no. 1458 (2005),1271–1279.
- 参阅Lewis Carroll, Alice ’s Adventures in Wonderland (London: Macmillan,1865), chap. 6.
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