Rating: 
Summary: "Truly Astonishing"
Review: A journey through the wonders of the Human Mind. A case for the ultimate question of what really makes us what we are. Dr. Francis Crick deftly handles the problem of human conciousness, exposing the real questions that could be tackled by scientific methods.
Is there a metaphysical soul, or is our consciousness fully explained by the activity of neurons in our brains?
Although Dr. Crick doesn't "directly" touch on this subject, but rather turn to "THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS", thus avoiding addressing causality in case of neural activity and conciousness, he does a marvellous job in shaping the thoughts of whoever asks the questions.
One of the most insightful books that I have ever read. Thank you Dr. Crick
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing Ado About a Lot.
Review: A most interesting and revealing unconscious account of a Nobel prize winner's frustration in trying to untie the Gordian knot of consciousness armed with the scientific methodology approach. The real value of this book is the unarticulated pessimism it distills about the possibility of science ever being an effective tool to unravel the mysteries of life and consciousness. It happens everytime a mathematician or a theoretical physicist strays away from the safe axiom-structure of his discipline and navigates in the unchartered waters of biology, sociology or philosophy. It happens in the best of families, Nobelists Nirenberg, Crick and Edelman being just the most recent examples. After all, should anyone expect retiring baseball star Cal Ripkin to be as good playing chess? The rules and perspectives of the game are different. The clue to Dr. Crick's deception is found in his homily during the Sunday Morning service at the end of the book when he critizes the psalmist for saying: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made.", to which he responds, tongue in cheek: "..he had only an indirect glimpse of the delicate and sophisticated nature of our molecular construction." And we ask, after several decades of trying to focus directly on the brain, what has he -or anybody else- come up with? Or perhaps he has the illusion he has explained "life" with his double helix model of DNA?, as when he claimed that DNA structure accounts for the "..mysterious aspects of embryology." Can an engineer, after calculating how the construction materials used account for the structural stability of a building, claim to have a knowledge of the master plan in the mind of the architect who designed it? When you take stock of the book you realize that there is nothing astonishing, not even any hypothesis, only a frustration. Did he solve the problem he set out to resolve? Did he develop strategies for the "Scientific Search of the Soul"? Hardly. He projects his displeasure when he points out the "..poor record.." of philosophers who "..would do better to show a certain modesty rather than the lofty superiority that they usually display". In one occasion he complained why church goers do not instead conduct experiments to demonstrate life after death! When he declares how "..our behaviour..based on a vast, interacting assembly of neurons..." enlarges the view humans have of themselves, any charitable reader would conclude, it must be only the British humor....
Rating:
Summary: The most cerebral discussion
Review: For those who don't use their mind to discover their souls, don't read it. But those who do
Rating:
Summary: Astunishingly penerating the mystery of our own sense
Review: Francis Crick always asks big questions, the bigger the better. He often gets the big answers. His questions are usually astonishingly simple and yet, they are the most penerating and deep thought questions. For example,he asked what is the screte of life, and the life itself, the relationship of the simplest molecules and the complex man. He participated the most profound discoveries in life sciences of 20th century, from the structure of DNA, the genetic code, the origin of life and now the ultimate question, why we are human and what set us aside from all other creatures. It is not the vitalism, rather, it is the complex interplay of all those simple molecules.
Rating:
Summary: Not a light read
Review: Francis Crick is probably best known to most of us from high school biology classes for his pioneer work with James Watson on the structure and function of DNA. In his book the Astonishing Hypothesis he tackles a topic hardly less complex, the origin of awareness. Although the subtitle would suggest that the discussion is the scientific proof for the existence of the soul--and possibly thereby the existence of God--the reader who takes up the book with this expectation will be resoundingly disappointed. Instead he or she will find a very convoluted discussion of brain neurophysiology, the theoretical basis of sensory systems, the attempts to synthesize human neural function in computers, and the author's personal theory of free will. What if anything any of this has to do with the soul is anybody's guess. On the whole, I have no quarrel with the author's choice of subject matter, but I found the book at times overly in depth and at others too brief in its discourse. I also found that the train of thought was a little confusing, as though the author went off on interesting tangents at great lengths and could only with great effort get back on track. It was as though he could have used a better outline to begin with or had attempted to cover too much in too small a space. It might also have arisen from his need to extensively paraphrase the work of others in fields in which he himself has less expertise. The discussion of the neural function of the human brain, particularly the oddities of its dysfunction were quite good. Indeed I felt it was an excellent update on what I had learned years ago in A&P for nursing school. The discussion of neural networks and artificial intelligence got a little too detailed for me, but if you're the type who finds Roger Penrose a pleasant afternoon's read, then Crick's account might actually be a little too light minded for you. In general I found the writer's style was labored enough for it to require a concerted effort to plow my way through it. It took several attempts, during which I read several other books on wholly different topics, before I could actually finish it. I even went to the extreme of taking it with me to my health club where I would be a "captive audience" with nothing better to take my mind off the boredom of my half hour on the tread mill. On the whole, I preferred boredom. While I've no doubt the gentleman is a very learned individual, I've undertaken more readable books on the subject of mind and awareness. States of Mind by Conlon and Hobson would probably be more understandable by and enjoyable to the average reader, although this book too tends to try to cover too much in too little space.
Rating:
Summary: Not a light read
Review: Francis Crick is probably best known to most of us from high school biology classes for his pioneer work with James Watson on the structure and function of DNA. In his book the Astonishing Hypothesis he tackles a topic hardly less complex, the origin of awareness. Although the subtitle would suggest that the discussion is the scientific proof for the existence of the soul--and possibly thereby the existence of God--the reader who takes up the book with this expectation will be resoundingly disappointed. Instead he or she will find a very convoluted discussion of brain neurophysiology, the theoretical basis of sensory systems, the attempts to synthesize human neural function in computers, and the author's personal theory of free will. What if anything any of this has to do with the soul is anybody's guess. On the whole, I have no quarrel with the author's choice of subject matter, but I found the book at times overly in depth and at others too brief in its discourse. I also found that the train of thought was a little confusing, as though the author went off on interesting tangents at great lengths and could only with great effort get back on track. It was as though he could have used a better outline to begin with or had attempted to cover too much in too small a space. It might also have arisen from his need to extensively paraphrase the work of others in fields in which he himself has less expertise. The discussion of the neural function of the human brain, particularly the oddities of its dysfunction were quite good. Indeed I felt it was an excellent update on what I had learned years ago in A&P for nursing school. The discussion of neural networks and artificial intelligence got a little too detailed for me, but if you're the type who finds Roger Penrose a pleasant afternoon's read, then Crick's account might actually be a little too light minded for you. In general I found the writer's style was labored enough for it to require a concerted effort to plow my way through it. It took several attempts, during which I read several other books on wholly different topics, before I could actually finish it. I even went to the extreme of taking it with me to my health club where I would be a "captive audience" with nothing better to take my mind off the boredom of my half hour on the tread mill. On the whole, I preferred boredom. While I've no doubt the gentleman is a very learned individual, I've undertaken more readable books on the subject of mind and awareness. States of Mind by Conlon and Hobson would probably be more understandable by and enjoyable to the average reader, although this book too tends to try to cover too much in too little space.
Rating:
Summary: Consciousness?
Review: given the author and his research interests for the last 15 years, I expected a direct evaluation/presentation of a theory of consciousness. Instead, one gets a review of visual neuroscience. Of course, he and Kotch have made it clear they will use the visual system as a starter to finding the neural correlates of consciousness. But even so, one must be disappointed. Crick reviews his "searchlight hypothesis", which actually received some support at the end of the nineties. He also proposes the Gamma band ocillation theory, and that too has suport (in a way), importantly through the work of LLinas and W. Singer. Synchronization and temporal binding is a hot and promissing field. The book is an interesting read, despite my negative comments. A consciousness studies must, alongside Edelman and Damasios work.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging, coherent, unspeculative
Review: Happens to be one of my tippy-top favorites among the books I've read in the last 10 years. Much of it is about experiments on the visual cortex of monkeys, described in a very reader-friendly way (though not always monkey-friendly). It's real science for non-specialists, highly engaging yet scrupulously unspeculative. The narrative theme is that our souls are reducible to biophysical processes in brain and body. Before I read the book I thought this was bloody obvious and not the least bit astonishing. Afterwards I had got the feeling for how it works, in part. The excellent account of some areas of brain research is the main reason to read this book. As a bonus you get Francis Crick's great scientific spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: don't assume too much
Review: I found this book enlightening. True, as another reviewer said, it's not all that *original*, nor is it written absolutely well. However, I think it's wrong to think that most people are familiar with this concept. Well, lots of people may be, but so many people I know who are familiar with reductionism reject it for no more reason than a general feeling of "dislike". When I read it a few years ago, I found it enlightening to find someone so excited and astonished by something that most people find frightening. I loved his scientific view of the natural beauty the hypothesis suggests. I'd also like to point out that, while reductionism itself may be "centuries old", Crick's deep examination and presentation of evidence in favor of an actual neurological basis for what we think of as the "soul" is only as old as neurology. I wouldn't recommend this book to just anyone. But I would recommend it as a starting point -- just borrow it ! from your library, read the introduction, the conclusion, the bibliography, and go from there!
Rating:
Summary: excellent introduction
Review: If you have high-school level biology background. This book will be a great book to know about the way people are trying to know the brain.
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