http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge201.html#rama
THE NEUROLOGY OF SELF-AWARENESS
By V.S. Ramachandran

What is the self? How does the activity of neurons give rise to the sense of being a conscious human being? Even this most ancient
of philosophical problems, I believe, will yield to the methods of empirical science. It now seems increasingly likely that the self
is not a holistic property of the entire brain; it arises from the activity of specific sets of interlinked brain circuits. But we
need to know which circuits are critically involved and what their functions might be. It is the "turning inward" aspect of the self
— its recursiveness — that gives it its peculiar paradoxical quality.

It has been suggested by Horace Barlow, Nick Humphrey, David Premack and Marvin Minsky (among others) that consciousness may have
evolved primarily in a social context. Minsky speaks of a second parallel mechanism that has evolved in humans to create
representations of earlier representations and Humphrey has argued that our ability to introspect may have evolved specifically to
construct meaningful models of other peoples minds in order to predict their behavior. "I feel jealous in order to understand what
jealousy feels like in someone else" — a short cut to predicting that persons behavior.

Here I develop these arguments further. If I succeed in seeing any further it is by "standing on the shoulders of these giants".
Specifically, I suggest that "other awareness" may have evolved first and then counterintutively, as often happens in evolution, the
same ability was exploited to model ones own mind — what one calls self awareness. I will also suggest that a specific system of
neurons called mirror neurons are involved in this ability. Finally I discuss some clinical examples to illustrate these ideas and
make some testable predictions.

"What is the self? How does the activity of neurons give rise to the
sense of being a conscious human being?"

I think the first question here is much more interesting and
problematic than the second one. You can't assume that there is self
though, so the second question becomes important. The qay you ask it
though, the "sense of being a conscious human being" is a proxy for
this assumed self. The better way of framing and dealing with both of
these questions is: to what does the activity of the brain give rise,
and is that "self."

The unity is the real mystery. Especially in any metaphysics that has
the cosmos objectively individuated into tiny bits of matter and
energy. Until someone gets large enough gonads to seriously address how
a literal "unity" of the mental is made possible under such worldviews,
the other meanderings are distraction.

.

Your materialist viewpoint makes me want to say one thing...
Where's the friggin 'off' switch. If we continue down this track, we must
provide an 'off' switch for those who do not wish to make this decidely
'anti-human' journey.

Otherwise, YOU [the scientific, super-rational, materialist] have become
monsters. Just a simply off switch is all we'd ask...NO PAIN; and then you
can have without obstacle, your world of 'neurons' and your throne upon
which you sit as master of intelligencia.

"Sir Frederick" fuzzysys.com> wrote in message
news:p94ar29ifm4gmqip1f0crppilsfgjp1men@4ax.com...

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:13:50 -0500, "tooly" bellsouth.net> wrote:

Sir Frederick wrote:

"someone2" btinternet.com> wrote in
news:1169530405.928282.161000@11g2000cwr.googlegroups.com:

Your argument is a good one.

Consciousness as a process can be explained by the laws of physics. What
cannot be explained is the "subjective feel" of primary phenomena, e.g., why
red looks like red. Those cannot be explained because they cannot be
described --- descriptive propositions characterizing them cannot be
formulated.

On 24 Jan, 07:17, Publius nospam.comcast.net> wrote:

On 24 Jan, 07:17, Publius nospam.comcast.net> wrote:

On 24 Jan, 07:17, Publius nospam.comcast.net> wrote: