Self Comes to Mind

all probability, we feel sounds in our ears because our brains are assiduously mapping both the information that comes to the sensory probe—from the entire auditory signaling chain including the cochlea—and the slew of co-occurring signals coming from the apparatus that surrounds the sensory device. In the case of hearing, this includes the epithelium (skin) covering our ears and the external ear canal, along with the tympanic membrane and the tissues holding the system of ossicles that transmit mechanical vibrations to the cochlea. To this we must add the small and not-so-small head and neck movements that we constantly make in an automatic effort to adjust the body to the sound sources. This is the auditory equivalent of the notable changes that occur in the eyeball and the surrounding muscles and skin when we are in the process of looking and seeing, and it adds qualitative texture to the percepts.
    The feel of smelling or tasting or touching arises via the same sort of mechanism. For example, our nasal mucosa contains olfactory nerve endings that respond quite directly to the conformation of chemical molecules in odorants—that is how we come to map scents and how we deliver jasmine or Chanel No 19 for their encounter with our self. But where we feel the smell arises from other nerve endings in the nasal mucosa, those that are irritated when you put too much wasabi on the sushi and are forced to sneeze.
    Finally, we note that there are back projections from the brain aimed at the body’s periphery, including the periphery that contains specialized sensory devices. This could well accomplish for a sensory process such as hearing a milder version of what the brain-stem–body loop accomplishes for feeling: a functional linkage that bridges the gulf between the brain and the starting point of the sensory chains in the body’s end-organ periphery. Such a loop might enable another reverberating process. The input cascades aimed at the brain would be complemented by output cascades aimed at the very “flesh” where the signals originated, thus contributing to the integration of inner and outer worlds. We know that such arrangements exist, the auditory system being a prime example. The cochlea receives feedback signals from within the brain, so much so that when the feedback mechanism is unbalanced, the cochlea’s hair cells can actually emit tones rather than convey them, as they are normally supposed to. We need to know more about the circuitry of the sensory devices. 11
    I believe the foregoing accounts for a substantial part of the problem as it succeeds in bringing together in the mind three kinds of maps: (1) maps of a particular sense generated by the appropriate sensory device, that is, sight, sound, smell, and so forth; (2) maps of the activity in the sensory portal within which the sensory device is embedded in the body; and (3) maps of the emotional-feeling reactions to the maps generated under (1) and (2), that is, Qualia I responses. Those percepts would come to be as they are when different kinds of sensory signals are brought together in mind-making maps of the brain stem or cerebral cortex. 12
Qualia and Self
     
    How do Qualia I and Qualia II fit in the process of self? Since both aspects of qualia round up the construction of the mind, qualia is part of the contents that come to be known as the self process, the self construction illuminating the mind construction. But somewhat paradoxically, Qualia II is also the grounding for the protoself and thus sits astride mind and self, in a hybrid transition. The neural design that enables qualia provides the brain with felt perceptions, a sense of pure experience. After a protagonist is added to the process, the experience is claimed by its newly minted owner, the self.
Unfinished Business
     
    The business of understanding how the brain makes a conscious mind remains unfinished. The mystery of consciousness is still a mystery, although it is being pushed back a bit. But it is too soon to declare defeat.
    Discussions of the neurology of consciousness and of the mind-brain problem usually suffer from two blatant underestimations. One consists of not giving proper due to the wealth of detail and organization of the body proper, the facts that the body is replete with micronooks and microcrannies and that microworlds of form and function can be signaled to the brain, mapped, and the result put to work for a variety of purposes. The most likely first