| As the authorities in cognitive neuroscience,Francis Crick and Christof Koch had tried to find the neuronal correlates of consciousness in the early days as colleagues,tried to reduce the conscious activities of human to the neuronal activities in the brain.They are the most representative reductionists in this field.Crick has proposed that the finding of neuronal correlates of consciousness is essentially a methodological turn for consciousness research,that is to transform the past inner introspection into the reduction of human's consciousness activities through neurobiology.Moreover,Koch extended the theory of Crick and tried to avoid the defects of his theory and established his consciousness theoretical system.The thesis chooses these two theories as the research objects thus to compare them.These two theories are essentially reductionism of consciousness in cognitive neuroscience.we try to clarify the developing path of neuronal correlates of consciousness which is the most representative reductionism,and study the difficulties it faces and its future development trend in order to provide reference for the development of materialism theory.This thesis is consisting of the following parts:First,we try to clarify the purpose and significance of the topic,conduct the systematic review of the relevant documents broad and home in cognitive neuroscience and briefly introduce the research findings to consciousness in cognitive neuroscience globally and the comment to neuroscience consciousness research in philosophy.Second,the concept of “consciousness” is explained etymologically,semantically and pragmatically.In this part we try to explain the concept “consciousness” defined by philosophers and neuroscientists.In the meantime,the problems and sub-problems of consciousness are sorted,and the “hard problem” of consciousness proposed by David Chalmers is emphatically presented.In the third part we try to introduce the theoretical basis and research presupposition,and discuss how they solve the major problem “how possible is the scientific research of neuronal correlates of consciousness”.Their research methods are similar,yet Koch noticed the defects of Crick's approach and improved his method by absorbing some elements of the functionalist approach.The consciousness research of Crick and Koch is launched as a methodological turn essentially,which is a positivism turn for consciousness research.The fourth part describes the location process details of neuronal correlates of consciousness conducted by Crick and Koch,that is where and how consciousness is from in the brain.Crick believes that the consciousness comes from the 40 Hz concussion,and the formation of consciousness,attention and very short-term memory have an inseparable relationship.Koch,however,considers the continuous firing activities between the inferior temporal(IT)or medial temporal lobe cortex and some neuronal clusters in the prefrontal cortex might be the objective neuronal correlates of consciousness,while the attention and very short-term memory are not the necessary and sufficient condition for the formation of consciousness.In part five,we reviews the answers to relevant questions of consciousness from Crick and Koch respectively.Crick in fact avoided it because it is related to his research intention.The purpose of his methodological turn is to get rid of the traditional method of introspective study of consciousness.This leads to the reject of many philosophy problems that relate to it.Koch however realized these questions could not be avoided.Thus,he tried to explain it with the theories of neuronal correlates of consciousness.In the sixth part,further comparison and comments are made to the consciousness theories of Crick and Koch,pointing out the improvement and examining the facing problems.In the end it briefly presents the latest research trend and findings of Koch's theories,discussing the possible direction of research on cognitive neuroscience consciousness in the future. |
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