Debating Connectomics: Sebastian Seung vs. Tony Movshon

Recently neuroscientists Sebastian Seung and Anthony Movshon debated minds, maps, and the future of their field at Columbia University.  The focus of their discussion was the question, "Does the brain's wiring really make us who we are?"

Seung, author of Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are takes the position that the connectome can be the blueprint for our identities. The central question for Seung—and the one that also keeps the transhumanists on tenterhooks—is whether you are your connectome. If you could deduce every connection point of every brain cell, the strength with which each neuron fires, and the way these firing patterns change as the cells interact with each other, would, in fact, you be left with a copy of you?

Dr. Movshon is currently Silver Professor of Neural Science and Psychology as well as Adjunct Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the School of Medicine at New York University. His research is focused on the way the brain encodes and decodes visual information to use in the control of behaviour. In particular, Dr. Movshon’s work concerns the function and development of the primate visual system, especially the visual areas of the cerebral cortex.

Movshon does not believe the connectome will provide the answers and cites the example of how the known connectome of the worm, C. Elegans has not improved our knowledge of the worm dramatically.  Essentially, Movshon's argument is based that the brain's software; not its wiring its what will be found to define the self.  

The debate was moderated by NPR's Robert Krulwich and Carl Zimmer with an introduction by Stuart Firestein.

According to Seung, "It turned out to be a difficult balancing act to both have a serious debate for scientists and an interesting event for the public. Maybe neither party was completely satisfied, but it seems like most everyone had a good time.

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