Submitted by Caroline Feldman on Sun, 02/03/2008 - 9:47am.
Suppose that consciousness exists in the brain. Clearly, the brain has many other functions, most of which have nothing to do with experience or decision-making. Then why is it that some neurons cause consciousness to appear, while the others are merely pattern recognizers? What is it that decides what I am about to say next? Whatever it is, it is probably inside my neurons, but which ones? Why those ones? There is the problem of deciding which neurons are conscious and which ones are merely information processors. How do these neurons communicate with each other? Perhaps the brain does not simply have a single consciousness. There could be hundreds or thousands of conscious neurons, each one experiencing and interacting with the world independently. Since each of them receive almost identical inputs, they each produce very similar outputs, and it is the amplification achieved through the strength in numbers that is responsible for that which we percieve as a single consciousness.
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Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate
but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
neurons and consciousness?