Self Comes to Mind

irrelevant to the process of justice and to the process of education charged with preparing future adults to an adaptive social existence. On the contrary, lawyers, judges, legislators, policy-makers, and educators need to acquaint themselves with the neurobiology of consciousness and decision-making. This is important to promote the writing of realistic laws and to prepare future generations for responsible control of their actions.
    In certain cases of brain dysfunction, even the best-exercised deliberation may fail to overpower forces either nonconscious or conscious, it does not matter. We are barely beginning to glean the profile of such cases, but we do know, for example, that patients with certain kinds of prefrontal damage may be unable to control their impulsivity. The way in which such individuals control their actions is not normal. How are they to be judged when they come under the purview of justice? As criminals or as neurological patients? Perhaps both, I would say. Their neurological disease should in no way pardon their actions, even if it may explain aspects of a crime. But if they are neurologically sick, then they are indeed patients, and society needs to handle them accordingly. A current tragedy in this regard is that we are just beginning to understand these facets of neurological disease; once the conditions are diagnosed, we have very little to offer in terms of treatment. But that in no way limits society’s responsibility regarding the understanding and public debate of the available knowledge, and the need for further research on these matters. 11
    Some other patients, in whom the prefrontal damage is concentrated on the ventromedial sector, judge hypothetical moral dilemmas in a very practical, utilitarian manner that has little or no use for the better angels of the human spirit. And when such patients are confronted with, say, a hypothetical case of attempted murder that did not result in death in spite of a murderous intent, they do not judge the situation as significantly different from that of an accidental and unintended killing. In fact, they may even find the former situation more permissible. 12 The way in which such individuals understand motives, intents, and consequences is unconventional, to say the least, even if in their daily lives they probably would not harm a fly. We still have much to learn about how the human brain processes judgments of behavior and controls actions.
Nature and Culture
     
    The history of life is shaped like a tree with numerous branches, each leading out to different species. Even species that are not at the end of a high branch can be superbly intelligent within their own zoological neighborhood. Their achievements should be judged relative to that neighborhood. Still, when we take the long view of the tree of life, we cannot fail to recognize that organisms do progress from simple to complex. In that perspective it is reasonable to wonder when consciousness appeared in the history of life. What did it do for life? If we scan biological evolution as an unpremeditated march up the tree of life, the sensible answer is that consciousness appeared quite late, high in the tree. There is no sign of consciousness in the primordial soup or in bacteria, in unicellular or simple multicellular organisms, in fungi or plants, all interesting organisms that exhibit elaborate life-regulation devices, precisely those devices whose accomplishments consciousness will improve upon at a later date. None of those organisms has a brain, let alone a mind. In the absence of neurons, behavior is limited and mind not possible, and if there is no mind, there is no consciousness as such, only precursors of consciousness.
    When neurons make their appearance, life changes remarkably. Neurons emerge as a variation on the theme of other body cells. They are made up of the same components as other cells, they go about their general business in the very same way, and yet they are special. Neurons become carriers of signals, processing devices capable of transmitting messages and receiving them. By virtue of those signaling capabilities, neurons organize themselves in complex circuits and networks. In turn, circuits and networks represent events occurring in other cells and, directly or indirectly, influence the function of other cells and even their own function. Neurons are through and through about other cells in the body, although they do not lose their body cell status just