In 1998, after a day of lectures at a conference on consciousness, a neuroscientist Christopher Koch (Allen Institute) and philosopher David Chalmers make a bet
They were in a “smoky bar in Bremen”, reported Per Snaprud, “and they still had more to say. After a few drinks, Koch proposed a bet. He bet a case of fine wine that within the next 25 years someone would discover a specific signature of consciousness in the brain. Chalmers said it wouldn’t happen and bet against it.”
25 years have passed and Mariana Lengaro writes Naturereports that both researchers “agreed publicly on June 23, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York, that this is still an ongoing search — and declared Chalmers the winner.”
One thing that helped settle the bet, Lenharo writes, was the recent testing of two different theories about the “neural basis of consciousness”:
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Network Workspace Theory (GNWT). IIT suggests that consciousness is a “structure” in the brain formed by a specific type of neural connectivity that is active as long as a particular experience is occurring, such as viewing an image. This structure is thought to be located in the posterior cortex, at the back of the brain. On the other hand, GNWT suggests that consciousness arises when information is broadcast to areas of the brain through an interconnected network. Transmission, according to the theory, occurs at the beginning and end of the experience and involves the prefrontal cortex, at the front of the brain.
Six labs tested both theories, but the results didn’t “completely match” either.
Koch reportedly bought “the case of fine Portuguese wine” for Chalmers.