Will we ever be able to locate consciousness within the brain? It is a question that, a quarter of a century ago, two researchers aimed to settle with a wager that is due to expire in 2023.
In 1998, Christof Koch, now at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, bet David Chalmers, now at New York University, that scientists would discover a specific signature – or neural correlate – of consciousness within 25 years.
“I was a young academic, I was at the world’s best …