Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul [Paperback]

Francis Crick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995

Traditionally, the human soul is regarded as a nonphysical concept that can only be examined by psychiatrists and theologists. In his new book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick boldly straddles the line between science and spirituality by examining the soul from the standpoint of a modern scientist, basing the soul's existence and function on an in-depth examination of how the human brain "sees."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Crick (co-discoverer with James Watson of DNA's double helix structure) here takes readers to the forefront of modern brain research. Geared to serious lay readers and scientists, this speculative study argues that our minds can be explained, without recourse to religious concepts of a soul, in terms of the interactions of a vast assembly of nerve cells and associated molecules. Crick delves into the nature of consciousness by focusing on visual awareness, an active, constructive process in which the brain selectively combines discrete elements into meaningful images. Early chapters include numerous interactive illustrations to demonstrate the brain's shortcuts, tricks and habits of visual perception. In later chapters Crick discusses neural networks--electronic pathways that can "remember" patterns or produce spoken language--and outlines research strategies designed to pinpoint the brain's "awareness neurons" that enable us to see.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Nobel Prize winner Crick, who with James D. Watson discovered the molecular structure of DNA, considers the nature of human consciousness, focusing in particular on visual consciousness in an explanation of how the brain "sees."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684801582
• ISBN-13: 978-0684801582
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but still worth it, January 17, 2007

By 

Vladimir Miskovic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (Paperback)

The astonishing hypothesis referred to in the title of Crick's book is that all of your phenomenological experience is ultimately reducible to "no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." So, just how is consciousness neurally instantiated? What the reader should take away from the book is just how difficult of a question this is.

Francis Crick was a thorough going empiricist and he strongly believed that the experimental method was the only way of successfully tackling the problem of consciousness. Along with his close collaborator, Christof Koch, Crick chose visual awareness (rather than say, self-awareness) as the main point of attack. The reason for this is because the visual system is relatively well understood and much easier to study in the laboratory.

Visual processing is an extremely complex business. Essentially, the visual system has to create a fairly high-fidelity representation of the environment (a model) from an array of heterogeneous light patches falling onto the retina. A staggering number of computational processes need to be performed in order for you to become aware of the final output. These processes operate unconsciously, in massively parallel streams. So, what we finally become aware of (our model) is the end result of a great many hidden computations. Much has been learned about the details in which the various features of a visual scene are decomposed and processed, but what remains a mystery is how we ultimately see something (i.e., become visually aware of it). As Crick says, what is required is an account of our "explicit, multilevel, symbolic interpretation of a visual scene."

"The Astonishing Hypothesis" does not provide anything like a Crick-Koch `theory' of consciousness. In fact, Crick goes to some length to eschew any precise definitions or theories. Any such purported theories, he believed, were pre-mature. (The closest that he comes to presenting some kind of a theory is his `Processing Postulate'). Instead what the book offers is a general strategy for submitting the problem to experimental study. Here the idea is to look for neural signatures of awareness or more technically the neural correlates of consciousness (abbreviated NCCs). In a nutshell (excuse the oversimplification), here is what NCCs are all about: submit to study some visual phenomenon which has an ambiguous interpretation (e.g., the Necker cube which can be perceived in two possible ways) and simultaneously obtain measures of neural activity. Some portion of the neural activity associated with the processing of an ambiguous figure will remain invariant (that portion which corresponds to the unchanging retinal input) while another, minimal portion of the neural activity will vary along with the percept. This variant, minimal portion is a good bet for representing a NCC, a neural signature of awareness. Finding a NCC can also tell us many other interesting things, such as whether or not there any special properties of the neurons in question, whether they are located in particular places or cortical layers and so on. And, a similar mechanism which underlies visual awareness is likely to underlie other forms of awareness. [Note that this addresses what David Chalmers has called the `easy' problem of consciousness and does not touch on the `hard' problem. There is a possibility however that Chalmers' hard problem is ill-posed and that there may in fact not be a hard problem to address].

Crick presents the results of many interesting research studies that bear on the problem of consciousness. He devotes some space to the issue of temporal binding and the 40-Hz oscillation hypothesis (or more precisely, the gamma-band oscillation hypothesis) as well as the potential importance of reverberatory thalamo-cortical circuits (see also the work of Gerald Edelman). Crick also speculates about the possibly important role played by the claustrum in the generation of consciousness (something he thought about a lot just prior to his death). Unfortunately for the general reader, this comes only near the end of the book, after a rather protracted discussion of the psychology and neurobiology of vision. For a reader who is unfamiliar with neuroscience, all the hard work done to get to the final portion of the book may produce a low pay-off. It seems that Crick could have got the main point of the book across just as strongly while omitting some of the technical details along the way. For those who have some familiarity with the subject matter the book will actually be an interesting and concise review but since the work was intended for a general readership one must judge it according to that criterion (and this is one of the book's flaws).

Francis Crick died in 2004. This marked a tremendous loss to the field as Crick was blessed with a brilliant mind and he undoubtedly had it in him to make many more important contributions. He brought his enthusiasm to the study of consciousness and made it a bona-fide scientific problem. For this, among other things, he should be celebrated.

A few final remarks about the book's title are in order. First, "The Scientific Search for the Soul" is a sensationalist title that was more likely than not the publisher's idea. Second: as most of the people working in the neurosciences adopt a materialist perspective (the most famous exception of course was Sir John Eccles), the purported astonishing aspect of the hypothesis has sometimes been questioned. And yet, this idea (that our consciousness, in all its richness, is in some mysterious way the result of biophysical processes) really should be astonishing. It is easy to be familiar with the workings of the brain and still slip into old habits of thought, implicitly believing that there really is some homunculus in the head who is doing all of the perceiving. As Crick says, "A man may, in religious terms, be an unbeliever but psychologically he may continue to think of himself in much the same way as a believer does, at least for everyday matters."

It is interesting to speculate about whether our experience of ourselves would change even in the hypothetical case that we did have a complete neurobiological theory of consciousness.

55 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What is so astonishing, Dr. Crick?, April 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (Paperback)

The problem with Crick's book--a rather common problem these days--is that it does not do what it sets out to do. According to Crick, there is this revolutionary and "astonishing" hypothesis that most people either do not know or cannot accept, namely the century-old idea that neurons, as individual and independent units of the brain, are solely responsible for all the higher functions that most people attribute to God, to mind, or to some mysterious agent. Well, if you tell this to any neuroscientist, you probably won't astonish him; if you tell this to a lay man, you won't astonish him any more than, say, the god hypothesis. So Crick, who is a reductionist in need of a little sophistication, really isn't telling us anything extraordinary. His arguments neither shock nor enlighten. The primary merit of this book lies in a solid, if technical, summary of some interesting research in recent years. It is handy as reference, but not particularly a pleasure to read. Crick is not much of a writer; nor is he competent enough in other fields to talk about some of the issues that he does talk about. The more entertaining part of the book, for me, is the delightful bibliography, in which Crick briefly describes each book that he recommends. His remarks are sometimes sharp and witty. Overall, though, this is merely an average book on a most popular subject.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my top 10 favorite science books, October 19, 2006

By 

Brian Bex Huff "bex" (Minneapolis, MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (Paperback)

This is one of the top 10 science books I have ever read. Not a light read, but anybody with a basic grasp of biology and computers should be able to follow along.

Francis Crick plays the quintessential scientist in this book. He puts forward a hypothesis about human consciousness that closely mirrors the philosophies of John Searle: there is no mind-body problem. There is only the body. You, your soul, is basically a complex pattern of neurons in your brain.

Naturally, gathering supporting evidence for such a hypothesis is quite a daunting task. This book does not provide ultimate proof, nor ultimate answers. Rather it presents a large body of promising and highly interesting anecdotal evidence. Since its a huge subject, Crick focuses mainly on how vision affects consciousness. He discusses a good part about the human visual cortex, and neural network theory in computer science.

The book is filled with fascinating stories about people with brain trauma, and how it affected their behavior, their personality... their SOUL.

Did you know that there is a form of blindness, where the people don't know they are blind? Did you know that human free will is probably located in the anterior cingulate sulcus?

If Crick is correct, this scientific journey to understand the soul is a long one: it might take a century. This book is the first step on a very, very long journey, and it might not even be correct. Readers and reviewers must keep this in mind.

To emphasize again, its a HYPOTHESIS. Not a THEORY. So don't expect a ton of supporting evidence. Just a bunch of good ideas, some compelling data, and a good direction for future research.