Christof Koch
Christof Koch | |
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Valentin Braitenberg Tomaso Poggio | |
Doctoral students | |
Website | http://www.alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/brain-science/about/team/staff-profiles/christof-koch/ |
Christof Koch (
Early life and education
Koch was born in the Midwestern United States, and subsequently was raised in the
He received a
, in 1982.Koch worked for four years at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at
Career
Koch has authored more than 300 scientific papers and five books about how computers and neurons process information.[6]
In 1986, Koch and Shimon Ullman proposed the idea of a visual saliency map in the primate visual system.[7][8][9] Subsequently, his then PhD-student, Laurent Itti, and Koch developed a popular suite of visual saliency algorithms.[10][11]
For over two decades, Koch and his students have carried out detailed biophysical simulations of the electrical properties of neuronal tissue, from simulating the details of the action potential propagation along axons and dendrites to the synthesis of the local field potential and the EEG from the electrical activity of large populations of excitable neurons.
Since the early 1990s, Koch has argued that identifying the mechanistic basis of consciousness is a scientifically tractable problem, and has been influential in arguing that consciousness can be approached using the modern tools of neurobiology. He and his student Nao Tsuchiya invented continuous flash suppression,[12] an efficient psychophysical masking technique for rendering images invisible for many seconds. They have used this technique to argue that selective attention and consciousness are distinct phenomena, with distinct biological functions and mechanisms.
Koch's primary collaborator in the endeavor of locating the neural correlates of consciousness was the molecular biologist turned neuroscientist, Francis Crick, starting with their first paper in 1990[13] and their last one, that Crick edited on the day of his death, July 24, 2004, on the relationship between the claustrum, a mysterious anatomical structure situated underneath the insular cortex, and consciousness.[14][15]
Over the last decade, Koch has worked closely with the psychiatrist and neuroscientist
Koch writes a popular column, Consciousness Redux, for Scientific American Mind on scientific and popular topics pertaining to consciousness.
Koch co-founded the Methods in
In early 2011,
Koch is a proponent of the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of complex nervous networks. In 2014, he published a short discussion work, In which I argue that consciousness is a fundamental property of complex things, where he introduced the concept that consciousness is a fundamental property of networked entities, and therefore cannot be derived from anything else, since it is a simple substance.[24]
In 2023, Koch lost a 25-year bet to philosopher David Chalmers. Koch bet that the neural underpinnings of consciousness will be well-understood by 2023, while Chalmers, bet the contrary. Upon losing the bet, Koch gifted Chalmers with a case of fine wine.[25]
Personal life
Koch is a vegetarian,[26][27][4] a bicyclist, and an experienced rock climber.[28][29]
Books
- Methods in Neuronal Modeling: From Ions to Networks, The MIT Press, (1998), ISBN 0-262-11231-0
- Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons, Oxford Press, (1999), ISBN 0-19-518199-9
- ISBN 0-9747077-0-8
- Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, The MIT Press, (2012), ISBN 978-0-262-01749-7
- The Feeling of Life Itself - Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can't be Computed, The MIT Press, (2019), ISBN 9780262042819
Selected publications
References
- YouTube
- ^ "Staff Profile Christof Koch, Ph.D." Allen Institute for Brain Science. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
- ^ "Christof Koch". World Science Festival. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
- ^ a b Paulson, Steve (6 April 2017). "The Spiritual, Reductionist Consciousness of Christof Koch". Nautilus. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
- ^ .
- ^ "Christof Koch". World Science Festival. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
- PMID 3836989
- .
- .
- ^ Laurent Itti (2013-08-01). "iLab Neuromorphic Vision C++ Toolkit (iNVT)". Ilab.usc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
- ^ "Saliency Toolbox". Saliency Toolbox. 2013-07-08. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
- S2CID 17115743.
- ^ Crick, F.C..; Koch, C. (1990). "Towards a Neurobiological theory of Consciousness" (PDF). Seminars Neurosci. 2: 263–275.
- ^ MIT CBMM briefing (Sep 23, 2014) - the story presented by Koch himself
- PMID 16147522.
- ^ David Chalmers (2013). "The Combination Problem for Panpsychism" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-06-01.
- ^ "Marine Biological Laboratory". Archived from the original on 2014-06-21. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ "Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering". Archived from the original on 2014-06-19. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ "Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain".
- . Retrieved 2013-10-12.
- ^ Koch C (2013) Project MindScope Archived 2016-12-21 at the Wayback Machine Allen Institute for Brain Science.
- S2CID 4426330.
- ^ "Billionaire Paul Allen Pours $500 Million Into Quest To Find The Essence Of Humanity In The Brain". Forbes. 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
- ISBN 9780262318594
- ^ Costandi, M. (2023). Neuroscientist loses a 25-year bet on consciousness — to a philosopher. Big Think. https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/consciousness-bet-25-years/
- ^ Epstein, Jason; Koch, Christof (2014-02-06). "The Pain of Animals". The New York Review of Books.
- Slate.com. Archived from the originalon April 28, 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ Heyman, Karen (2003). "Christof Koch's Ascent". The Scientist. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
- ^ Berger, Kevin (15 April 2019). "Ingenious: Christof Koch". Medium. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
External links
- Official website
- Christof Koch at IMDb
- Christof Koch on the Muck Rack journalist listing site