How does the brain produce consciousness?

Question

There are no explanations for how the brain produces consciousness (If it is the brain that does this). We have all heard of our "inner selves". When our senses pick up images and sounds what are these images and sounds being reported to? In other words how is our "inner self" produced by the brain? Another way of looking at the "inner self" problem is to say - what produces the you in you?

Answer 1

You got 15 hours? Latest theories point to the idea that there is no 'you' in there and that the inner mind is an illusion. There are a few books out there such as Conciousness Explained by Dennet that are worth a read but there are alos those who think Conciousness can never be satisfactorily explained. If you could do it there would be a certain Nobel Prize waiting for you.

Answer 2

Actually there are many explanations for how the brain produces consciousness. Try Daniel C. Dennet's book, Consciousness Explained (Little, Brown, 1991). That was 15 years ago. Today most brain scientists are in agreement about the nature of consciousness. The healthy brain produces perceptions, reasoning, imagination, memory, dreams, emotion, association and body sensation. All of these thought processes - experienced as a whole day to day - is what we know as "my life" or "my unique experience of being alive." This experience IS you, and nothing more. The brain does all this, and the result is extraordinary, and you can't conceive how the brain does it. So it becomes easier to think that a "soul" lives inside you. Actually, your experience of life is your consciousness. It's that simple. In the case of highly intelligent beings, like humans, we have conceptual and logical ability, so we are able to plan, imagine, define, categorize, etc. So we know that we know. Our consciousness is special...we are self-awareness. But animals have consciousness, too, and some may have self-awareness to a degree.

You've touched on an interesting topic...it could lead you into a study of the human brain, an amazing learning journey!

Answer 3

It seems like consciousness is being equated with the 'inner self'. I'm not sure exactly what the inner self is, but I know what consciousness is -- it is self-awareness. It is the knowledge of the fact that one exists as an individual and is inherent in the ability of a person to say "me" or "myself".
So how is this possible? Well, one way to envision the brain's functioning is to think of it as a hierarchy or pyramid-like structure. At the bottom of the pyramid, the nervous system receives sensory data from the surrounding world. The data is processed by the brain similarly to how a computer processes data. After being processed on the lowest level, the sensory data becomes a perception, and the perception is sent up to the next level in the hierarchy. And so on and so forth, all the way up to the highest level of the brain, the main control center. But how do we become self-aware? The highest level loops back and feeds into self.

Answer 4

The brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness is a product of the mind. If your brain was a computer it would be the CPU. Your mind would be the operating system. The CPU is useless without an operating system. Well, that's how I see it anyway.

Answer 5

that's variety of a philosophical question...i think once you're a Dualist, you ought to merely say there exists something intangible like a soul/ideas that some how communicates to the actual worldwide interior the direction of the ideas. I prefer to think of that there are molecules arranged and orientated in this variety of way on your ideas cells that correspond to stimuli that we experience all the time, and this association of molecules and cells produces information.

Answer 6

"There are no explanations for how the brain produces consciousness " sums it up pretty well.

'the you in you' thing is a homunculli fallacy...

Materialists are too pussy to posit psycophysical laws, so they fall on supervenience.

Answer 7

i think of it, the you of "you" as your spirit , you are born with it, if you mean consciousness as being your thinking self, as opposed to just awake/not asleep, you are basically you, have been, probably will always be, ,,,,,, this you, can be influenced by a great many things,,,,, but it is the basic core of yourself