THE ASTONISHING FRANCIS CRICK

At a recent memorial service and celebration of Francis Crick at the Salk Institute, V.S. Ramachandran, was among the speakers (others included Sydney Brenner and Jim Watson). The title of Rama's talk, "The Astonishing Francis Crick", is from the recent "Francis Crick Memorial Lecture" he gave at the center for the philosophical foundations of science in New Delhi, India, at the invitation of Professor Ranjit Nair.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. He is the coauthor (with Sandra Blakeslee) of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.

As I was leaving he said "Rama, I think the secret of consciousness lies in the claustrum—don't you? Why else would this one tiny structure be connected to so many areas in the brain?"—and he gave me a sly, conspiratorial wink. It was the last time I saw him.

Read Rama's lecture here.