You Are Not Your Brain

Must be dense today, but I don't really see what the arguing was about. That the environment conditions and affects consciousness? There's hardly a single neuroscientist who would object to that.<p>The analogy with car was really horrible, not to mention the point of it is unclear.<p>It is understandable however that many people would find the idea of consciousness as product of neural interaction uncomfortable. It strips human of certain degree of divinity. I haven't read the book, but from the article this seems to be author's major concern.

I think by "consciousness" he may mean a different thing than I was expecting. My definition goes back to the classic Cartesian "I think, therefore I am", though I reject his subsequent dualism.<p>I think a brain-in-a-jar could also realize that he exists; he thinks, after all, if life support is there. Of course, the world may well be necessary for consciousness; maybe a brain-in-a-jar would never realize that he exists. But the world is not involved in the "being conscious", any more than the road is involved in my driving on it.

"But the view that the self and consciousness can be explained in terms of the brain, that the real us is found inside our skulls, isn't just misleading and wrong, it's ugly. &#60;snip&#62; I find this a very sad and ugly picture of our circumstance. Now contrast that view with a sense of ourselves as engaged in the flow, responsive to the things going on around us, part of the world. It's a very different picture."<p>So...is he arguing that brain-as-self is wrong because it's untrue, or wrong because it's depressing? I've always understood myself as a being within a brain, using my body for I/O. I agree that on its face it's a somewhat alienating concept, and I'd love to believe otherwise, but Noë did nothing to convince me it's untrue. Another example:<p>"The dominant view in neuroscience today represents us as if we were strangers in an alien environment. It says that we go about gathering information, building up representations, performing calculations and making choices based on that data. But in reality, when we get up in the morning we put our feet on the floor and start to walk. We take the floor for granted and the world supports us, houses us, facilitates us and enables us to carry on whatever our tasks might be. That kind of fluency, that kind of flow, is, I think, a fundamental feature of our lives. Our fitting into the world is not an illusion created by our brains, it's a fundamental truth about our nature. That's what I mean by home sweet home."<p>I don't understand how he can assert that the process he describes has no part in the way we start our day. We may not consciously decide whether the floor is something we should walk on every day, but that doesn't mean it's not a subconscious or instinctual decision that takes place within the brain. It seems to me all he's advocating is a change in perspective, suggesting that we are comfortable beings in a familiar "home," but this does nothing to shed light on the nature of consciousness. Of course consciousness is an emergent process that rises out of mind, body, and environment, but if it doesn't take place within the brain, then where is it?

He is doing what all second tier philosophers do: fiddling with semantics.

Alva Noe has simply demonstrated that he is uncomfortable with science and incapable of logical thought with regards to the brain. Neuroscience probably invalidates his career.

Since when is reductionism a bad thing?

I highly recommend reading "Concsciousness Explained" by Dan Dennett. After reading that it will be very easy to see how one's self can be identical to one's brain.

So what's his proof?

I AM my brain. All of my experiences happen within the physical construct that floats in the calcium construct of my skull. The physical processes of my neurons happen within the same physics that allow everything from quarks to quasars to function. There is a physical process, not yet fully described, that will describe how experience is formed and perceived. We're still getting the data, and are working on the answers.

You are a product of your environment. --Clement Stone