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Sarah-  your post got me thinking/referring to what I am learning in Psychology right now. This statement led me right to perceptive system that we unconsciously employ to merely exist in, respond to,  and interact with our environment: “You can look at a picture of a bird and know it's a picture, not a real bird. I can do the same thing.” Now, you say isn’t it amazing that we are so much the same, and use this as  an example. I am not at all arguing with you, because it is amazing, or challenging your post in any way. But, this doesn’t surprise me at all (and I am using “amaze” and “surprise” as two very different words here). We as humans must interact with one another and in order to do so, we need to be able to communicate and relate to each other. Now, if our brains weren’t able to process information in the same manner (which in no way means we would necessarily experience everything in the same way), then how would these necessary interactions transpire? I am thinking specifically of people with disabilities, such as a learning disability, and the difficulty they find in communicating something or understanding something because their brains don’t process the information the same way mine does, or yours does.This idea of recognizing a picture as just that is answering the “What is it?” question of perception. And, we all need to have  that same pathway for perceiving and answering that question so that we can coexist and so that you don’t sit quietly admiring the picture of the bird while I go  up to  the frame and try to pet the bird,  and  then  wonder why  the sensation of its feathers is different than when I stroke my parakeet.

When it comes down to it, I think that though the  neurons are connected in an infinite number of ways and so the make-up of the brain (structurally, at the neuron level) is not the same from me to you, I think the functions of all of these parts IS the same, and so similarities will occur in perception of the world. It’s like a deck of cards—you can shuffle them up and deal  a different hand to every player, but when it comes down to it, the ace  of spades is always the ace of spades (I acknowledge that this analogy is a bit flawed, seeing as how the ace of spades can serve a different function in every card game, but the point I am trying to make is that a motor neuron is always a motor neuron and has the qualities of a motor neuron no matter where it is in the brain, just as the ace of  spades has the qualities of the ace of  spades no matter where it is in the  deck.)