On: Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2002)

[danielbigham]

In university I wrote an essay arguing that consciousness was something in another dimension of reality and that the brain "projected" it's perceptions into that dimension. I also argued that that other dimension didn't pass any data back to the brain -- it was a one way street. ie. I argued that behavior wasn't influenced by the other dimension. However, like yourself I realized that my theory was false. The very fact that I spent so much time sitting around thinking about consciousness (behaviour) proved my theory false by counterexample. So we know that consciousness, in addition to adding an experiencial aspect to humans also has a computational / behaviour-affecting aspect to it.

[sametmax → danielbigham]

The counter exemple assume that the brain produce thoughts but :

If everything is perfectly causal there is a possibility that there is no such thing.

Another theory is that the brain yo think but is a receiver that gets idea from outside.

Also, the brain may be indispensable for thoughts but maybe not the only component.