The brain as a black box. Processes input and produces output. Behavior is that output - be it digestion or copulation, thinking or feeling. I am interested in cognitive aspects. We have some notion of what happens in the brain to cause thirst or hunger, or to allow us to move, what is more tricky is to ask what the input is when somebody is thinking, feeling (emotionally), or recalling something. What is input for which the output is me feeling the desire to do my homework and type this paper? Thought in general would seem to be the brain giving input to itself rather than processing it from peripheral sensory neurons.

So the black box picture where there is a flux of arrows entering the left side of the box as input and exiting the right as processed output needs to be modified to look a little like magnetic field lines. There are some output lines that exit and go up and around and back in the left side as input lines. The brain can act like a big auto-recpetor.

Is this a possible source for definition of consciousness? A what level of brain complexity do we find this self-stimulation? Is their a neurological basis for it? Does this give rise to the the sense of self? IF all the input comes from the external then there is no room for a self...

The black box fails to account for different output from identical stimulus ( the Harvard law) and it fails to account for all the more complex functions of the brain like memory and language and emotion. Different parts fo the brain perform different functions. And regions have more than one function depending upon context. Perhaps if each region is treated as a black box that is connected to other box/regions in a network we have a better model.

Yep. Will need to modify the box, as we have started doing. Consciousness as maybe both auto-stimulation and self-stimulation? With internal boxes as inputs to each other? Will see how far we can get with that (and a few other things). PG