[extropy-chat] Scientists continuing study of consciousness

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Francis Crick decided to devote his life to unraveling two mysteries:
the foundation for all living things and how the brain gives rise to
the mind.
By 1953, Crick and his young American collaborator, James Watson, had
solved the first mystery with their model of DNA, igniting a revolution in
biology and earning a permanent place in the annals of science.
The riddle of the mind, however, remains intractable as ever.
Tomorrow, when the Salk Institute in La Jolla hosts a public memorial for
Crick, who died July 28 at 88, that unfinished business will most certainly
be talked about.
How billions of brain cells interpret sensations, draw on memory and
association to make sense of them, and create conscious thoughts about the
world is unknown.
"It's inconceivable to us, but somehow it happens," said Terry Sejnowski, a
computational neurobiologist at the Salk Institute who studies how
computers can be used to understand the brain.
"Consciousness is elusive," he said. "It's hard to pin down."
Pondered by theologians and philosophers throughout the ages, human
consciousness is ultimately the product of biology – bewildering as it is,
scientists say.
"Your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense
of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior
of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules," Crick
wrote in his 1994 book, "The Astonishing Hypothesis."
Illuminating how the brain creates consciousness would profoundly change
the way humans view themselves, scientists say.
With blueprints in hand, medicine could someday find new treatments for
mental illness. Antisocial behaviors such as violence and sexual abuse
might be addressed in new ways.
Engineers could build machines that truly think, bringing artificial
intelligence out of science fiction and into the real world.
"It's open skies, if you think about it," Sejnowski said. "It's like the
holy grail."
San Diego Union -Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20040926-9999-1m26aware.html