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Can Neuroscience Explain Conciousness?

 

            Francis Crick and Christof Koch are both neuroscientists who have tried to explain the human mind in respect to consciousness. In their essay, Why Neuroscience May Be Able to Explain Consciousness, they state when people talk about consciousness, there is something to be explained. They feel they have reason to study this consciousness in ways that others usually fall short. "Most consider it to be a philosophical problem, and so best left to philosophers. They concede that it is a scientific problem, but think it is premature to study it now." (Crick and Koch) Crick and Koch have taken these two outlooks and have viewed at them in the exact opposite light. They emphasize the time to start the scientific attack is now. They are right in their assertion, but must present it in a much more acceptable level. Maybe to do this they must wait to present their ideas until it is ready for comprehension by the majority. The human mind is so extremely finite; understanding is reliant upon the willingness to comprehend. .
             Scientific study is a wondrous thing, but the means of expressing the thoughts in a way that all understand can be the most challenging. People seem to want to believe only if they can relate to the thoughts of others. I like to think of this as dimensional thought. Edwin A. Abbott in his book, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, asserts everyone has a dimension of understanding or a finite understanding. The story brings you along on the journey of a square that lives in Flatland. Flatland consists of planar objects having three and more sides. These objects can move in any direction save it be up or down. The square finds himself traveled to a place that consists of many lines all moving about only in a linear fashion. The square begins to speak to one the inhabitants of this "Lineland." The square does not get very far in explaining to this linear being even the simplest concept that it is possible to move in more directions than forward and backward.


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