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(SCIENTISTS.) CRICK, FRANCIS. Two Autograph Letters, unsigned, retained drafts to neuroscientist John Raymond Smythies ("Dear John") or ImageSoft founder Edward H. Currie ("Dear Dr. Currie"). The first, clarifying some of his views about the processing of visual stimuli in the brains of humans and other primates. With a three-line holograph note, unsigned, to his secretary Maria Lang: "Check with Rome[?] that Smythies is now in London and not still with Rome[?]," written in upper margin of first page. The second, discussing some ways in which a computer is--or is not--a good metaphor for the human brain. Together 5 pages, 4to, written mostly on rectos of separate sheets of ruled paper; staple holes at upper left throughout. Np, [14 February 1994]
To Smythies: ". . . The somatosensory system is so closely linked to the motor system that it is very likely to be different in this respect from the visual system. Recall, incidentally, that the LGN [lateral geniculate nucleus] is not the only part of the thalamus involved with vision. The pulvinar is, in fact, quite a bit bigger than the LGN. Nor should one forget the interlaminar nuclei. I think the equivalent in vision of 'warmth' or 'tickle' in such things as the redness of red. ". . . About Zeki's hypothesis: indeed visual imagery may influence V1 [the visual cortex], but this does not prove that the firing of any neurons there correlates with visual awareness. I suspect, but cannot prove, that primate V1 is not directly involved in what we see, since it has no direct connections to any part of the motor system . . . ." To Currie: ". . . I agree that computers have evolved and you might well claim that some of this involves 'selection,' but most of this evolution was (I hope) not mindless. ". . . The line between hardware and software may indeed be somewhat arbitrary but the point was that many people do make this distinction, and it is even more arbitrary in the brain. ". . . (The parts of the brain are not wired as general purpose systems, though they may perhaps use much the same learning algorithms.) The brain gets round ill-posed problems by cheating--that is, by solving well-posed problems that give a sufficiently useful answer . . . . ". . . [M]y description of how the CPU [central processing unit of a computer] fetches messages was badly worded. However I think it is still true that memory is coded in the brain in a significantly different way . . . , as we see from the work on neural networks." Provenance: From the collection of Crick's personal assistant, Maria Lang, who was employed at the Salk Institute from 1977 to her retirement in 1994.
