in space

If the brain keeps a constantly updated map of where our limbs are in space, then consciousness is the brain keeping a constantly updated map of its activities "in space." Wouldn't that "in space" account for the Cartesian theater?

mirror neurons

When you see someone move their arm, the neurons for moving your own arm fire in your brain.

The implications of this for language and consciousness: we hear words and feel what the other person feels when they say the words to themselves.

Does this mean we our conscious of ourselves in the same way we are conscious of the feelings of others? That we feel what it is like to feel like ourselves!

sampling

Consciousness is a sampling of brain activity of manageable size so we can talk about it.

Language meant a limited repertoire of words with which to communicate. This forced the brain to simplify in order to communicate.

Which came first, consciousness or language? I imagine we spoke to others before we spoke to ourselves. In either case, consciousness would be a prerequisite. It's what we talk about. We could not talk about our "brain state:" it's too complex. But we can talk about our conscious thoughts; they're manageable.

We also need consciousness to imagine what the other person hears when we speak.

Shouldn't we say that we "feel" conscious rather than that we are conscious? And free.

Consciousness as a simulation, a simplified version of what's out there and in our brains.

partial consciousness

What we call full consciousness is obviously only partial consciousness. Full consciousness of all brain activity would be overwhelming and useless. Compare our full vision to 360˚ vision.

two signals

Maybe when the brain decides to more our arm, say, it sends out TWO sets of signals. The first is the signal to the muscles to life the arm. The second, simultaneous signal would be to a part of the brain that would create the illusion of us having decided to move the arm. In this wey, we (our conscious selves) are the puppet of our brain (as is our body).

This explains for example the dual process of falling in love. The brain seeks a mate whose smells indicate a compatible immune system. At the same time, it creates on the feeling of being in love when we meet that special immune system.

free will as immmune-system booster

Human brains evolved a propensity for religion because humans who felt they lived in a meaningful, ordered world survived better. They were probably less stressed out.

What if consciousness and the illusion of free will evolved for similar reasons: to enhance well-being and reduce stress? We would be pretty stressed out if we had consciousness but it only served to let us witness the fixed choices our brain was making. Feelings of helplessness are very stress-inducing, so consciousness without the illusion of free will would not be an advantage. Consciousness and free will might have evolved hand in hand as those with a tendency to self-awareness and feelings of making their own choices survived better than those without these tendencies and feelings. They would survive better because the feeling of conscious free will reduced stress and boosted their immune system.

Perhaps consciousness evolved first as a result of language. Consciousness thus might have created advantages and problems. Maybe humans went through a phase where some of them had no feelings of free will (these presumably did not survive). Perhaps the free-will component is a recent evolutionary event. This is certain: ultimately the survivors were those who felt conscious free will. I can't think of a better reason for consciousness/free will than that of immune-system booster.

brain = internet

Why do we compare the human brain to a comupter when the human brain has 50 billion neurons and the entire internet has only 108 million web pages? Each human brain should be considered as the equivalent to an internet, or several internets. Consciousness thus resembles something like Google, getting a handle on all the postings of various neural groups.