Consciousness

Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist

Christof Koch
MIT Press © 2012
200 pages
[@] getab.li/23395
Book:

Rating Take-Aways

7
6 Importance • Science cannot accurately define “consciousness,” but it involves the human ability to
experience the physical world.
8 Innovation
6 Style • No one fully comprehends how the nervous system and consciousness interact.
• The universe has one shared reality, but only science can quantify it.
  • Neurons gather, interpret and transmit data through synapses – “contact points” where
Focus nerve cells meet.

• Everything you think and feel comes from a particular physical brain process.
Leadership & Management
Strategy • Attention and consciousness are distinct brain functions.
Sales & Marketing
• “Zombie agents” are specialized routines – like how to ride a bicycle – that function
Finance below conscious comprehension.
Human Resources
IT, Production & Logistics • The brains of mice and humans have neuroanatomical similarities.
Career & Self-Development
• The only justification for experimenting on animals is the relief of human suffering.
Small Business
Economics & Politics • Science hasn’t found empirical evidence of a supreme deity. Direct evidence of God
Industries
has, traditionally, sprung from individual revelations of transcendent experiences.
Global Business
Concepts & Trends

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getabstract

getabstract
Relevance
getabstract
What You Will Learn
In this summary, you will learn:r1) How neuroscientist and philosopher Christof Koch describes
“consciousness,” 2) How scientists research the nervous system’s connections to consciousness, and 3) How Koch
views major philosophical issues, including the existence of God.
getabstract
Review
Christof Koch, a notable researcher in the field of “consciousness,” calls himself a “romantic reductionist.” He
explains that, as a reductionist, he looks for “quantitative explanations for consciousness in the ceaseless and ever-
varied activity of billions of tiny nerve cells” and as a romantic, he believes “the universe has contrails of meaning
that can be deciphered in the sky above us and deep within us.” In this intense scientific and personal autobiography,
his prose and narrative structure prove anything but reduced. Koch details complex neurobiological experiments and
studies, interweaving his life story with his philosophy about the profundity of the universe and what he interprets
as the absence of a supreme deity. He addresses the weightiest topics, and his enthusiasm for them is admirable. But
unless you study or work in similar areas, his complex style, long sentences and technical details may daunt even the
most informed consciousness. Still, for his thoughtful expertise in multiple disciplines, getAbstract – while always
neutral in matters of religion – recommends this work to philosophers, biologists, neurologists, computer scientists,
and all who teach or study those fields.
getabstract
getabstract

getabstract
Summary
getabstract
“Consciousness”
How and why do you perceive the world, and how and why do your perceptions affect
the world you perceive? How and why does your awareness of yourself as a functioning,
feeling, thinking being – that is, your consciousness – nourish or thwart your connection to
getabstract
the world? These largely unanswerable questions motivate neuroscientist and philosopher
“Consciousness is the Christof Koch’s work. A basic dichotomy informs human existence: Your brain, which the
central fact of your laws of physics govern, is one part, and your cognizance about everything you experience
life.”
getabstract is the other. What is the relationship between these elements? Your nervous system and
consciousness interact constantly, but no one knows how. The questions of how and
why fascinate philosophers, scientists and laypeople alike. Philosophers call it the “Hard
Problem,” in that consciousness eludes “rational explanation…scientific analysis” and
“empirical validation.”

Religion and science are humanity’s prisms for seeking insight about the nature of the world
and people’s place in it. Charles Darwin undermined notions of religion by suggesting that
getabstract God did not rule the Earth. Instead, certain life forms, including humans, developed in
“What is it about response to the needs of survival in a universe where species fight for resources without
the brain inside your
head that makes you a creator’s intervention.
conscious of colors,
of pain and pleasure,
of the past and of the Scientific and Philosophical Roots
future, of yourself and Christof Koch works with “physicists, biologists, psychologists, psychiatrists,
of others?”
getabstract anesthesiologists, neurosurgeons, engineers and philosophers.” He studies the neurobiology
of brain activities and considers how his observations might illuminate questions about
consciousness and the relationship between mind and body. He uses magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) of the brain to search for quantifiable evidence of the workings of

Consciousness                                                                                                                                                                         getAbstract © 2016 2 of 5

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 consciousness in the brain’s countless microscopic cells, each of which contains “tens of
thousands of synapses.”

getabstract American-born, Christof Koch grew up in an observant, forward-thinking Catholic family.

“I am doubtful that Latin prayers and Gregorian chants were part of his childhood. As he became fascinated
intense religious
experience, although by science, Koch found religious explanations of the world and of his own consciousness
no doubt genuinely felt, increasingly unsatisfying. Existence, he came to believe, consists of one reality shared by
reveals anything about
the actual existence of all, and only science can quantify it. He no longer accepts the idea of an immortal soul or
God.” a guiding supreme deity.
getabstract

Koch obtained a master’s degree in physics from the University of Tübingen in Germany.
He came to regard the brain as a computer – an organ for “processing information.”
He wrote code for other professors whose work inspired him. Koch earned his PhD in
biophysics at the Max Planck Institute. He did postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1982 and, in 1986, moved to the California Institute of
getabstract Technology to teach biology and engineering. There, he met his mentor and friend, Francis
“I seek quantitative Crick, a seminal scientist and thinker.
explanations for
consciousness in the
ceaseless and ever- Theories About Consciousness
varied activity of
billions of tiny nerve Scientific theories about consciousness abound, but they’re not all helpful in scientific
cells, each with their research. In his collaborative studies with Crick and others, Koch studied many concepts
tens of thousands of
synapses.”
of consciousness. He maintains that only consistent, rigorous scientific experimentation
getabstract can produce solid conclusions about the nature of consciousness. Because consciousness
possesses inherent mystery and its functions defy rational analysis, people often revert to
religious or spiritual causes to explain it. While finding this path emotionally valid, Koch
rejects it in favor of science.

He explains, “Without consciousness, there is nothing.” You experience the world through
getabstract your consciousness – every smell, sight, taste, emotion, memory and action. Ancient
“The only way you
experience your cultures and some contemporary religions locate consciousness in the heart or, more
body and the world amorphously, in the soul. Science understands that consciousness springs from the brain,
of mountains and
people, trees and dogs,
although exactly how the nervous system and brain – two essentially electric entities
stars and music is – translate all their inputs, transmissions and outputs into your thoughts, dreams and
through your subjective memories remains a mystery. Science can explain myriad mysteries, such identifying a
experiences, thoughts
and memories.” remnant of a specific cosmic event that occurred in space 13.7 billion years ago – the age
getabstract of a relic of the Big Bang that satellite imagery confirmed in 1994. Yet science can’t tell
you why your toothache hurts and why you can’t pretend you don’t feel the pain. Science
has yet to explain the “physical basis” of consciousness.

Neurons and Synapses

Uncountable “networked cells” make up your nervous system. Neurons are the most
getabstract significant cells, and your body has “many different types…maybe as many as a thousand.”
“Is consciousness
a fundamental,
The brain features an astounding variety. Each square millimeter of the cortex contains
irreducible aspect 100,000 “highly heterogeneous” neurons. They differentiate based on their synapses,
of reality? Or does genetics and other factors. The neurons’ almost infinite linkages add to the complexity of
it emerge from
organized matter, as the nervous system’s functioning.
most scientists and
philosophers believe?”
getabstract Neurons gather, interpret and transmit data through synapses – the “contact points”
where nerve cells meet. Each neuron has thousands of synapses, which “are analogous
to transistors.” In your nervous system, “perhaps 1,000 trillion synapses link about 86
billion neurons.” The nervous system sends signals at relatively slow speeds, but it connects

Consciousness                                                                                                                                                                         getAbstract © 2016 3 of 5

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 vast, quite different networks of neurons throughout the body with enormous “parallel
communication and computation.” The brain, like the nervous system, follows the laws
of “electrical charges” and “conservation of energy.” Yet consciousness doesn’t obey such
laws. Scientific observations of the brain and nervous system don’t reveal how or where
getabstract
“The amelioration consciousness begins, ends or operates.
of human suffering
is the only ethical
worthwhile justification Cerebral “Bioelectrical Activity”
for studying animals in Everything you perceive and feel occurs through “a particular physical mechanism in the
an invasive manner.”
getabstract brain.” Your brain contains a specific circuit for recognizing your spouse in a photograph,
for example, or catching the opening notes of a favorite song. Some parts of your brain
enjoy a “more privileged” connection to your consciousness. For instance, you don’t
need a functioning spinal cord to see, hear, taste, speak and think. Quadriplegics and
hemiplegics lose no sense of the world. Their bodies don’t respond to commands from
the brain, but their consciousness remains cognizant and receptive. However, people
who suffer damage to the cerebral cortex or the hippocampus may lose much of what
consciousness provides, such as memory and color recognition. This effect strongly
getabstract suggests that certain cerebral bioelectrical activity in specific locations in the brain is
“I do believe that some
deep and elemental fundamental to a functioning consciousness.
organizing principle
created the universe
and set it in motion “Selective Attention”
for a purpose I cannot How do consciousness and selective attention inform one another and interact? You
comprehend.”
getabstract command a “spotlight of attention.” You might train it on a television show, but if you
hear a dog barking outside, you can tune into the bark without losing the thread of the
program. For centuries, scholars and scientists believed that attention and consciousness
were so similar as to be indistinguishable and might be the same function. However, based
on 20 years of research, Koch thinks they are distinct. Attention applies concentration to
a section of the constantly incoming information that your brain sifts through. Attention
developed as a Darwinian protection against information overload. Science advances
knowledge – of “energy, atom, gene, cancer” and “memory” – by increasingly reducing
getabstract sophisticated concepts to simpler elements. Neuroscientists apply this process to attention
“Yet, I always knew
that there is but a and consciousness.
single reality out there,
and science is getting
increasingly better at
“Zombie Agents”
describing it.” Your brain hides self-destructive emotions, such as remorse, from you in a process that may
getabstract
also be a Darwinian adaptation. You must suppress certain thoughts and memories to be
able to operate. For instance, primitive humans needed to think and reflect less in order to
act with the speed their survival demanded.

Traveling through your own subconscious is a problematic journey. Suppressed thoughts

raise the issue of who and what constitutes your “sovereign I.” Koch explains, “I now
understand that the actions of the sovereign I are determined by habits, instincts and
impulses that largely bypass conscious inspection.” Zombie agents are specialized routines
getabstract
that function below conscious comprehension. These are similar but not identical to
“The greatest of all “reflexes.” Yanking your hand away from a hot pot on the stove is a reflex. Zombie agents,
existentialist puzzles is formed through training and habit, enable more sophisticated actions to become automatic.
why there is anything
rather than nothing.”
getabstract For instance, once you learn to shoot a basketball or play the piano, you don’t consciously
remind yourself how to perform these actions. If you stop to think about your zombie-
agent functions, you impede your performance of them. Human action can occur faster than
conscious thought. Your eyes perceive minutiae your brain doesn’t consciously process.
Consider a baseball player swinging at a ball. The batter doesn’t consciously recognize

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 the ball’s movement. The batter’s eyes do, and they deliver messages to the zombie agents
controlling muscle memory.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science

Throughout his years of scientific research, Koch conducted experiments on animals,
including mice. During that time, he wrestled with significant moral issues about this
getabstract method. He concluded that only easing human suffering could justify experimenting on
“The only certain
answers come from animals. In 2011, Koch became chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain
science.” Science in Seattle, Washington. The Institute is famous for its online Allen Mouse Brain
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Atlas, a public, accessible map of the 20,000 genes that make up the mouse genome. The
Institute investigates the coding and usage of “neuronal information.” Just as astronomers
take years to understand what they see through telescopes while peering into the distant
cosmos, so scientists at the Allen Institute recognize they are only at the beginning of
their quest into the universe of neurons. Mouse brains are worth studying because human
brains and mouse brains share many “genetic and neuroanatomical similarities.” For mice
and humans, the experience of life and consciousness springs from the constant coming
together and breaking apart of “coalitions of neurons.” Neuron complexity creates all the
representations you perceive of the world.
getabstract
“If we honestly seek
a single, rational and Why Does the Universe Endure?
intellectually consistent The Greek philosopher Plato held that you have an immortal, ephemeral soul trapped in
view of the cosmos
and everything in it, your solid, mortal corpus. His thinking gave rise to the classical Western dualism that
we must abandon the two different phenomena combine to constitute existence: the “mental or spiritual” and
classical view of the
immortal soul.”
“the physical.” Koch says that, to consider existence, you first must reject notions of
getabstract the “immortal soul.” Alternatively, many people view physics as being able to define
everything in the universe, which consists of “time, matter and energy.” But this view
suffers from too much reductionism. To Koch, the most pressing question is not whether
God exists, but why something exists at all: “why there is anything rather than nothing.”
Why did the universe and life begin, and why do both endure?

Science has never found empirical evidence of any supreme deity. Evidence of God has,
traditionally, sprung from revelations: Someone had a transcendent experience in which
getabstract he or she witnessed the divine and shared that experience with others. Koch recognizes
“Here I am, a highly
organized pattern that some people have had such experiences, but he is skeptical about interpreting them as
of mass and energy, evidence of the existence of God. He doubts that personal religious experiences – no matter
one of seven billion,
insignificant in any how powerfully they affect believers – can substitute for empirical proof.
objective accounting of
the world.”
getabstract
Koch believes the universe was created by and operates according to a “deep and elemental
operating principle.” Being raised in the Catholic Church, he conceived of this principle as
“God.” Since his scientific awakening, however, Koch misses the reassurance of having a
belief in an all-powerful, all-seeing deity. Life was more comfortable when he could cling
to that imagery. He has never lost his overwhelming sense of awe and wonder, and nor has
time lessened it. But he believes now that only science provides certainties.
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About the Author
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Neuroscientist Christof Koch is best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He is the president
and chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington. His books include The
Quest for Consciousness.

Consciousness                                                                                                                                                                         getAbstract © 2016 5 of 5

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