Christof Koch on Free Will, the Singularity and the Quest to Crack Consciousness

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I met Christof Koch in 1994 at the first of series of big conferences on consciousness held in Tucson, Ariz. A professor at Caltech, Koch had helped popularize consciousness as a topic for serious scientific investigation instead of windy philosophical supposition through his collaboration with the great Francis Crick, who had already cracked the genetic code and now wanted to solve the riddle of mind as well.

In Tucson Koch outlined a theory, jointly fashioned by him and Crick, that 40-hertz brain waves might be a key to consciousness. Although I was skeptical of that particular theory, I liked the hard-nosed, materialist, reductionist approach that Koch and Crick took toward consciousness. I also liked the quirky intensity that Koch brought to his scientific work.

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