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Comment by blueprint | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've never heard a neuroscientist answer (although I have asked at least a dozen) is how to distinguish between the expression of consciousness and the generation of consciousness (i.e. the difference between a light bulb and an electrical generator). It's interesting to consider this question when we include the fact that the brain can't really operate without good blood flow into the brain. When blood flow is blocked the function of the brain (as well as the expression of consciousness) are blocked.

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I genuinely have no clue what your question means and entails (as a neuroscientist with a reasonable undergraduate career in anglo-american philosophy). Can you elaborate?

Maybe you need more blood flowing to your brain in order to understand his question...

Maybe that's why they never got a good answer -- because the question doesn't map onto reality very well?

If I were going to say something that sounded like that, it would be this:

We think of a lightbulb as a device which generates light, but it isn't that intrinsically; the filament glows only when electrified, and the bulb is only a small part of the light-generating system which includes an electrical generator (and, presumably, a burning fuel source). The bulb is the place where the light first becomes visible, but it makes less sense to say that it is the place the light comes from.

Similarly, we think of the brain as a thinking machine, but it isn't that intrinsically; it is only a small part of a much larger thinking system which includes functions of respiration, circulation, ingestion, et cetera. So we can say that the brain may be the place where thinking first becomes noticeable per se, but it makes less sense to say that it is where thought is created.

Which is all well and good. I'm not sure what part of it is supposed to be a hard question about neurology rather than a PHIL100 essay topic, though.

The light bulb is definitely a less-than-apt metaphor. I think the crux of what he's asking about is the line between a system's production of subjectivity and a subject's experience of it (which constitutes the subject as such). The separation between the two seems to be absolute, i.e. if "brains cause minds," as Searle puts it, no amount of introspection on the part of the mind allows it access to the brain. Consciousness is a one-way trip.

How to distinguish between the two might be an interesting question from, say, a Chinese Room[1] or p-zombie[2] standpoint, which might have some philosophical bearing on AI. But that's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

2. http://www.skepdic.com/zombies.html

I think it is fair to say that we just don't know yet. Neuroscience has learned a great deal about the underlying machinery (neurons, synapses, and so forth), but we have no idea how you put that machinery together to generate something like consciousness. This is, for me, what makes the field interesting, because I think these questions are answerable.

As far as the original article, I think anyone who tries to argue that you are not your brain is ignoring over a hundred years of scientific evidence that suggests otherwise.

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