I Think, Therefore I'm Not

                Throughout Daniel Bor's The Ravenous Brain, Bor attempts to wrestle with the hot topic of consciousness.  From the philosopher Rene Descartes to cognitive neuroscience icon Michael Gazzaniga, the neuroscience of consciousness finds itself battling against the age-old belief in the individuality of awareness.  

                In Chapter 5 of The Ravenous Brain, Bor effectively reduces consciousness to "a physical process generated by brain activity" (Bor, 158). The conscious mind is nothing more than the conscious brain.  To put it simply, changes in the brain by way of various factors result in changes to consciousness.  According to Bor, today's most serious theories center on consciousness as a "particular flavor of dense information transmission across a large cortical network" (Bor, 187).  While Bor thoroughly acknowledges non-physical theories of consciousness, he like many others, believes in a "precise neural signature of consciousness" (Bor, 187).

                In Krishna Andavolu's article, Consciousness Is Just Your Brain Making a Model of Itself, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano supports the notion that our brains simply "make models of the world around us and our bodies" (Andavolu) in order to make sense of our senses. These models are sketches of the world that serve an evolutionary purpose.  Our brains are exceptionally good at making models.  Both Bor and Graziano essentially argue that the consequence of proficient model-making is what we've come to understand as consciousness, "the ungraspable I, the magic sauce of Being that defines our essential humanness" (Andavolu). 

                In addressing the concept of consciousness, Graziano believes that many scientists are simply asking the wrong question.  In assuming that  consciousness has a "magical inner feeling", experimentation begins under the uncertain illusion of magic.  Rather, both Graziano and Bor believe that the better question arises from understanding the adaptive advantages of consciousness.  Referring back to Graziano's model approach, the brain attributes the property of awareness to itself because that's our way of monitoring the fact that our brain is paying attention to an object. In essence, our awareness of a piece of fruit, and our awareness of ourselves are the same thing. 

                Graziano believes that in the next 100 years,  there will be a device "that can scan the brain in enough molecular detail to stimulate or recreate data in artificial hardware".  Because people are obsessed with living forever, he believes in the ability to create some sort of "electronic afterlife". He also believes in  potential "virtual playgrounds" whereby people can put themselves into a simulated world.

                While the neuronal interactions that generate consciousness are still far from understood, I believe that much of the difficulty in understanding consciousness is socially constructed.  Reducing consciousness to a neural mechanism appears to dethrone the individuality of thought.  As a "consciousness machine" (Bor,177), to what extent do I really exist?

References:

Bor, Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable     Search for Meaning. New York: Basic, 2012. Print. 

Andavolu, Krishna. "Consciousness Is Just Your Brain Making A Model of Itself." Vice(2013): n. pag. Print.