[qwerty_asdf]

  I still fail to see why having a single 
  neuron that circumnavigates the brain should 
  lead to consciousness.

Me too, but what an experiment it could lead to, and the questions it would answer.

Reasons it makes sense include the singular perception of self. No longer does that sense of being in one place, and perceiving one experience seem mysterious. If there's one container, and one self, the idea that the core of our living self ultimately resolves down to a single-celled animal depending on a collective of subordinate cellular tissues wraps up so many other details in an easily understood package.

Of course it raises the question of what mechanism drives such king-making? Is the sheer size of the neuron a factor? Is status determined as a zygote? Does status last from cradle to grave? If there's one master neuron at a time, does the master neuron's identity get exchanged or relayed to other neurons throughout life? How would hand-off work? What if there are conflicts? I'm sure there's no simple answer in any of these ideas, and the reality of such details will remain as complex as ever, if this is even the right track to follow...

But if it were true, maybe it opens the door to mastering one's entity of self, such that a person, or any similar organism might be capable of existing temporarily in a petri dish, lunching on agar, while the body goes in for a tune-up.

[maxander]

You're asking a great deal of a single neuron (or even a small set of brain-spanning neurons) if you expect it/them to be you. Functionally speaking, a neuron is a bag of sodium and potassium ions that fills and empties itself via various molecular valves, perturbing other little valve bags in the process. That billions of these can instantiate a human personality is fantastic enough in and of itself; the claim that personal identity can be reduced down to some particular little valve bag is utter nonsense.

[T-A]

But fun nonsense. Imagine if it really were so. Neurons die all the time, in the thousands every day. So one day that particular neuron dies, and you are gone. But nobody else can tell, because the other 100 billion neurons are still doing their thing. They now control an automaton without consciousness which, nevertheless, will emphatically claim to be conscious, should anybody ask. Because we all are, right? :)

[beaconstudios]

Philosophical zombies are definitely interesting subjects for thought experiments.

[red75prime]

For incorrect thought experiments. You cannot conceive p-zombie from first point of view, because there's no first point of view for p-zombie. If you conceive p-zombie from third point of view, you cannot be sure that it IS p-zombie, because you aren't God and p-zombie is identical to not-p-zombie from third point of view.

[beaconstudios]

Well, the parents concept was that of a living consciousness becoming a p-zombie, which seems valid to me.

[red75prime]

If there's no changes in behavior we usually associate with consciousness, then why we decided that those neurons were responsible for consciousness in the first place?

[type0]

The problem off course how we define consciousness, Koch wants it to be a few neurons that define it so his view of it would be different from someone using other methods.