March 28, 2004
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By better understanding the zombie within, neurobiologists hope to explain consciousness
By Scott LaFee
UNION-TRIBUNE UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 24, 2004
Consciousness is one of the great and lingering mysteries of science. Francis Crick, the Nobel laureate who co-discovered the structure of DNA, calls it "the major unsolved problem in biology."
Crick believes that all of the brain's behaviors, including consciousness, result from the brain's physical processes. For more than a decade, he and colleagues like Christof Koch, a neurobiologist, have argued that human self-awareness is essentially the consequence of countless neurons, sensory cells and other physiological systems interacting with the environment to create the intangible entity we know as our minds.
Everything we think, say and do, contend Crick and Koch, can be explained biologically ...
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20040324-9999-news_lz1c24zombie.html
Awareness occurs, Koch said, at the interface between sensory processing and mental planning.
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