The Conscious Mind Is Not

After All, Across The Population There Are Slight Differences In Brain Function, And Sometimes These Translate Directly Into Different Ways Of Experiencing The World. And Each Individual Believes His Way Is Reality.

Even While It's True That We Are Tied To Our Molecules And Proteins And Neurons - As Strokes And Hormones And Drugs And Microorganisms Indisputably Tell Us - It Does Not Logically Follow That Humans Are Best Described Only As Pieces And Parts.

If An Epileptic Seizure Is Focused In A Particular Sweet Spot In The Temporal Lobe, A Person Won´t Have Motor Seizures, But Instead Something More Subtle. The Effect Is Something Like A Cognitive Seizure, Marked By Changes Of Personality, Hyperreligiosity (an Obsession With Religion And Feelings Of Religious Certainity), Hypergraphia (extensive Writing On A Subject, Usually About Religion), The False Sense Of An External Presence, And, Often, The Hearing Voices That Are Attributed To A God. Some Fraction Of History´s Prophets, Martyrs, And Leaders Appear To Have Had Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

The Drives You Take For Granted ("i'm A Hetero/homosexual," "i'm Attracted To Children/adults," "i'm Aggressive/not Aggressive," And So On) Depend On The Intricate Details Of Your Neural Machinery.

Brains Are Like Representative Democracies. They Are Built Of Multiple, Overlapping Experts Who Weigh In And Compete Over Different Choices.