Historical Survey On The View Of Francis Crick's Consciousness Studies

Francis Crick,who used to be a biophysicist and a molecular biologist,turned his later research field to the problem of consciousness,in the 1970s.His theoretical framework for consciousness,which is founded on the neural correlates of consciousness(NCC),takes visual awareness for the breach,advocates a method of reductionism as the basic approach,has exerted profound influences on the history of cognitive science at the end of the 20th century.And even more,the publishing of The Astonishing Hypothesis,in 1994,pushed the contemporary studies of consciousness to the hot research area.This dissertation,carries on a study on the outlook of Crick on consciousness,which might have important theoretical significance and academic values.In the first place,this thesis explores Crick's research process of consciousness,and has detailed elaboration on Crick's outlook of consciousness.Francis Crick turned his attention to the problem of consciousness since 1970s,and formed his systemic theory of consciousness in 1990s,and,published The Astonishing Hypothesis.He proposed the idea that human beings' consciousness is emerged from the corresponding complex brain,which was based on the neural correlates of consciousness,i.e.,NCC.And afterwards,He studied human's conscious activities on the base of visual awareness.Next,This thesis explores origins of Crick's view on consciousness studies.The concept NCC,not only is from intellectual accumulations of philosophers,but is the product of interdisciplinary intersections.Crick's thoughts,was influenced heavily by the trend of anti-functionism,and critiques for the paradigm of behaviorism,furthermore,E.Nagel's theory of reductionism became the direct source of Crick's thoughts of consciousness.In addition,"Gossip Test",which was advocated by Crick himself,and attitudes towards religion,also had influence on the forming of his thought of consciousness more or less.In the end,this thesis also explores the influences and limits of Crick's outlook of consciousness.By contrast with study paradigm of cognitive science on consciousness,Crick's theory has been shattered the previous methods of "black box",or analogy,is better than behaviorism and functionism for the internal interpretation,by advocating method of scientific experiment.Crick has made the study of consciousness walking out the shadows of cognitive psychology,the former,which regains new developments.Meanwhile,it has promoted integration of multi-disciplines,which makes consciousness being accessible for scientists for the first time.And,Crick's theory of consciousness also has some limitations itself,e.g.,Crick's pure scientific study of consciousness was once critiqued in the philosophical fields by several figures,such as,J.Searle,D.Chalmers.