I dedicate this book to Christopher Koch, without whose enthusiasm and support this book would not have been possible. Preface by the original author for the Chinese translation I am very glad that the book "Astonishing Hypothesis" has been translated into Chinese.This makes it accessible to a wide range of educated Chinese readers.This book is written for non-scientists interested in the question of consciousness, but also for scientists, especially those with some background in neuroscience. Since the publication of this book in 1994, neuroscience has made several advances. The study of binocular rivalry by Nikos Logothetis and colleagues has been extended to other cortical areas, particularly higher levels of the visual hierarchy, such as the infratemporal area (IT).A striking result: a large fraction of the relevant neurons fired according to the monkey's presumed perception, many of them in an "all-or-none" fashion, clearly indicating that in this particular task , the firing of these neurons is indeed the partial neural counterpart of consciousness.We eagerly look forward to the publication of more similar work.

Based on neuroanatomical evidence, Christof Koch and I argue that when visual information passes through our eyes, one does not directly know the firing of neurons in visual area Vl, although most of the information passes through the primary visual cortex.We believe that consciousness is articulated by higher levels in the visual hierarchy.Now, some new experimental evidence in the psychology of vision supports our hypothesis, but it's not enough to prove it. David Milner and Melvyn Gopdale published an important book in 1995 called The Visual Brain in Action.In the book, they suggest that there may be fast "online" systems in the brain that respond appropriately, if somewhat stereotypically, to simple visual input, like reaching for a cup.These systems are fast and unconscious.Conversely, Milner and Goodale also propose the existence of a parallel, slower conscious system that can handle more complex visual situations and can influence the choice of many different motor outputs, including language.The idea of ​​two systems, conscious and unconscious, is an exciting hypothesis, but exactly how these putative pathways work, and how they interact, is far from being understood.

The late Irvin Rock pointed out from a psychological point of view that the visual system is a hierarchical system that bases the expression of complex features on the basis of simple feature expressions.He also did some experiments to support this idea, which is the same as J. J． The simplistic assumption of direct perception favored by Gibson is contradictory. In conclusion, some progress has been made since the book was published.But so far, there have been no major breakthroughs backed by strong evidence.It allows us to draw a clear hypothesis about what the brain does to make us conscious.Until such a breakthrough arrives, it is unlikely that we will solve such a perplexing problem of perceivable properties, such as the degree of blueness.Meanwhile, philosophers will continue to babble against the idea.

It is my hope that this translation will arouse the interest of Chinese readers in the question of consciousness and inspire some of them to conduct experimental research on this difficult and fascinating subject. Francis Crick October 1997 Translator's preface The problem of consciousness is a great challenge to contemporary science.The famous mathematical scientist Roger Penrose explained the interrelationship between computers, human brains and the laws of physics in his book "The Emperor's New Brain".He pretended to have a story as the opening statement of the book. The story said that a certain unit successfully designed a "super sub" computer with excellent performance and amazing speed, and let it answer various questions of the attendees in public at a press conference.Participants hesitated for fear that their questions would be too superficial.Suddenly, the silence was broken by a teenage boy who "didn't know what to do."He asked shyly, "How do you feel now?" "Super Son" was at a loss.Penrose used this to explain that although computers have achieved great success, compared with human brains, there are still many principle differences.Now, although a human-designed computer can beat a world chess champion, it doesn't have consciousness.

The problem of consciousness has always been the research object of great concern to philosophers, but after several centuries of exploration, no substantial progress has been made.After psychology was separated from philosophy, it also took the issue of consciousness as an important research topic.Since the German psychologist Wundt regarded psychology as a behavioral science, the question of consciousness has been sidelined.Most neuroscientists tend to keep their research under wraps about questions of consciousness.It's only when they've made it to fame that they talk about it.For example: Sherrington, Eccles and others, after they won the Nobel Prize, published a number of works to discuss their own views on the issue of consciousness.Due to the extreme complexity of the problem of consciousness, no breakthroughs have been made so far.

The author of this book, Crick, takes a unique path, insists on the simple materialism thought of a mathematical scientist, and boldly puts forward an "astonishing hypothesis" based on "reductionism".He believes that "people's mental activities are completely determined by the behavior and composition of nerve cells and glial cells and the properties of atoms, ions and molecules that affect them."He firmly believes that consciousness, a difficult psychological problem, can be solved with neuroscience methods.In the book "The Amazing Hypothesis", he regards vision as a breakthrough in the study of consciousness, and believes that consciousness originates from the process of combining "attention" and "short-term memory".At the end of the book, the author ventures into the question of "free will."He analyzed the behavioral responses of some brain-damaged patients and suggested that the anatomical site of "free will" may be closely related to the "anterior cingulate gyrus".He also proposed a series of experimental designs and methods in psychology, anatomy and neuroscience for the study of consciousness. These viewpoints, theories and methods are obviously a serious attack on the long-term dominant philosophical and psychological thinking methods in the study of consciousness. challenge. It is indeed surprising that the "amazing hypothesis" reduces a complex consciousness problem that has long plagued philosophy and psychology to a typical modern neuroscience problem.

The publication of this book coincides with a period of renewed international academic interest in the question of consciousness.On the one hand, with the rapid development and popularization of computer science, personal computers are entering thousands of households, and the functions of computers are becoming more and more powerful.However, in order to design an automaton with independent consciousness, which can actively perceive and adapt to the surrounding environment, some insurmountable difficulties are encountered.Although artificial neural networks made some progress in the late 1980s, there are still many essential differences compared with human complex behaviors.On the other hand, brain science and neuroscience have developed rapidly in recent years. The 1990s have been dubbed the "decade of the brain" by the scientific community.Now some new experimental instrument technologies, such as the invention and improvement of non-destructive technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional nuclear magnetic resonance (fMRI), can detect human neural activity under normal conditions.These experimental techniques provide unprecedented experimental evidence and possibilities for exploring the question of consciousness.The progress of science and the needs of human production activities and social activities call for human beings to unravel the mysteries of consciousness.In this context, Crick's "amazing hypothesis" came into being, which opened the prelude to the use of natural science methods to study consciousness.

Crick is a leading figure in the academic circle. Together with Watson, he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, ushering in a new era of molecular biology. In the 1970s, he turned his interest to neuroscience, especially the theory and model of the visual system.He believes that since the double helix model was put forward, some basic problems in molecular biology have been largely solved, but human beings understand too little about their own spiritual activities.After in-depth investigation and research, he chose the problem of consciousness as the research target.

The translators greatly appreciated Crick's simple materialism.The human brain is an extremely complex system.The essence of system theory is that the functions of the system cannot be completely reduced to the constituent units.Especially for nonlinear systems, the complexity is far from predictable for individual units.The organizational structure and hierarchical relationship of the system play an important role in the function of the system.The problem of consciousness is one of the most complex problems in psychology.Religious, philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific explanations will likely remain at odds for quite some time.long-term coexistence.The good news is that people are finally beginning to use the methods of natural science to explore the question of consciousness.We are pleased to dedicate the simplified Chinese translation of Crick's works to Chinese readers, providing an important reference work for readers interested in this issue.

Not long after the original book was published, we received Crick's original book from the United States by Dr. Cheng Zixi (a graduate student in our group).Now our research group is engaged in the research of visual theory and models, and undertakes major projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.Everyone read this profound and simple book with great interest.We feel that this is a rare good book, which has important reference value for our current research work.We are obliged to make an introduction to Chinese readers, so we recommended this book to the editorial department of the "First Promotion" series of Hunan Science and Technology Press, and immediately received positive responses from them.

The Chinese translation of this book is the collective work of our research group.In order to cultivate the translation ability of young people, most of the translated manuscripts are written by doctoral candidates.Participating in translation, proofreading and review are Wu Xinnian and Cui Hong (Chapter 1 to 6); Pan Xiaochuan and Qi Xianglin (Chapter 7, 8 and 10); Zeng Xiaodong, Qi Xianglin, Wang Zhihong and Wang Yunjiu (Chapter 9, 11 to 10). Chapter 8); Wang Yunjiu, Qi Xianglin, Pan Xiaochuan, Wang Zhihong, Ni Rui, Yang Qian (the rest).We learned a lot from working in translation schools.However, since there are no domestic institutions and teams specializing in the study of "consciousness", some nouns have different translations in different disciplines; in addition, foreign thoughts and theories on "consciousness" have not yet been familiar to the domestic academic circles. Due to our superficial understanding of this issue, errors in the translation are unavoidable, and I hope readers will feel free to give advice when they find out. We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Open Laboratory of Visual Information Processing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for their support over the years, which made it possible for us to engage in long-term research in our field of interest, and provided the necessary time and conditions to ensure the translation of this book publishing.Finally, I would like to thank Hunan Science and Technology Publishing House for promising the publication of this book and negotiating for the publishing rights of the Chinese translation of this book. translator 1997.9 at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing