Self Comes to Mind

some brain sectors more than others? My answer is a definite yes. I believe the contents of consciousness that we can access are assembled mostly in the image space of early cortical regions and upper brain stem, the brain’s composite “performance space.” What happens in that space, however, is continuously engineered by interactions with the dispositional space that spontaneously organizes images as a function of ongoing perception and past memories. At any given moment, the conscious brain works globally, but it does so in an anatomically differentiated manner.
2. Any mention of human consciousness conjures up visions of the highly developed cerebral cortex, and yet I have written many pages relating human consciousness to the humble brain stem. Am I prepared to ignore received wisdom and designate the brain stem as the lead partner in the conscious process? Not quite. Human consciousness requires both the cerebral cortex and the brain stem. The cerebral cortex cannot do it all alone.
3. We have a growing understanding of how neuron circuits work. Mental states have been linked to the firing rates of neurons and to the synchronization of neuron circuits by oscillatory activity. We also know that compared to other species human brains have a larger number and greater specialization of brain areas, especially in the cerebral cortex; that the human cerebral cortex (along with those of apes, whales, and elephants) contains some unusually large neurons known as Von Economo neurons; and that the dendritic branches of some prefrontal cortex neurons in primates are especially abundant compared to those of other cortical regions and of other species. Are these newly discovered features sufficient to explain human consciousness? The answer is no. These features help explain the richness of the human mind, the vast panorama that we can access when minds become conscious as a result of varied self processes. But in themselves they do not explain how self and subjectivity are generated, even if some of these same features play a role in self mechanisms.
4. Feelings are often ignored in accounts of consciousness. Can there be consciousness without feelings? No. Introspectively, human experience always involves feelings. Of course, the merits of introspection can be questioned, but regarding this issue what we need to explain is why conscious states appear to us the way they do, even if the appearance is misleading.
5. I hypothesized that feeling states are generated largely by brain-stem neural systems as a result of their particular design and position vis-à-vis the body. A skeptic may well conclude that I have not answered the question of why feelings feel the way they do, let alone why they feel like anything at all. Here I both agree and disagree. I have certainly not provided a comprehensive explanation for the making of feelings, but I am advancing a specific hypothesis, aspects of which can be put to the test.
    Neither the ideas discussed in this book nor the ideas presented by several colleagues working in this area can be said to solve the mysteries surrounding brain and consciousness. But the current work includes several researchable hypotheses. Only time will tell if they can deliver on their promise.
The Neurology of Consciousness
     
    I see the neurology of consciousness as organized around the brain structures involved in generating the lead triad of wakefulness, mind, and self. Three major anatomical divisions—the brain stem, the thalamus, and the cerebral cortex—are principally involved, but one must caution that there are no direct alignments between each anatomical division and each component of the triad. All three divisions contribute to some aspect of wakefulness, mind, and self.
THE BRAIN STEM
    The brain-stem nuclei provide a good illustration of the multitasking required of each division. To be sure, the brain-stem nuclei contribute to wakefulness, in partnership with the hypothalamus, but they are also responsible for constructing the protoself and for generating primordial feelings. Accordingly, significant aspects of the core self are implemented in the brain stem, and once the conscious mind becomes established, the brain stem assists with the governance of attention. In all of these tasks the brain stem cooperates with the thalamus and the cerebral cortex.
    To gain a better picture of how the brain stem contributes to the conscious mind, we need to look more closely into the components