Michael Mitchell: Archive

"How does the brain create consciousness in the first place? And it's very hard to discover that with existing research techniques. Why? Well, you see, the standard picture that people have is that perception creates consciousness, and in a way that's right because my perception does give me consciousness I didn't have before. But I like to think of it this way. Imagine you wake up in a dark room, as I did this morning, away from home, and your first feeling is where the hell am I? And it's dark and you're not having any stimulus. All the same, you can become completely conscious even though you have minimal perceptual stimulus, virtually none. Then you get up and get dressed and brush your teeth and go and have breakfast and so on. Now are you creating consciousness when you do that? Well, in a sense you are, but I want to say the right way to think of it is when you woke up the brain created the conscious field and then your activities modified the conscious field by introducing perceptions into it."