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 The brain is a phenomenal machine. It produces input, forms and conducts outputs, makes decisions, learns, behaves.....it does a lot of stuff. The brain is made up of many neurons, billions in fact; I would say that there is about 10^12 of them in all, and counting. And yes, while we are on the hot topic of behavior and the brain’s phenomenal ways of performing such behaviors, it does make sense that behavior is exclusively the result of the brain’s billions and billions of neurons. Perhaps, we can use this explanation to understand why one human being may perform a similar action as another human being, or why one ant would do the same thing that another ant would do. For example, I scratch my head when it itches just as if someone else would scratch their head if it itches. The neurons in both of our brains are telling us the same thing, "scratch your head!" If we both have neurons that control our behavior exclusively, than we would both do the same things in response to an input. However, let us think about such things as freewill, personality, and choice. If behavior was truly controlled by our neurons and our neurons only, would these aspects of our lives even exist? In this case, I suppose that we could use the excuse that the neural connections between neurons are what give us variability in decision-making. Instead of me scratching my head when itches, like my comrade just did, I pat my head instead. This model seems....ok. But something is missing. I just do not seem to be able to account for such things as personality and freewill. Variability in our neural connections does not completely justify these aspects of the brain, or should I say, the mind. If we were nothing but neurons and connections we would be more like robots, would we not?

Jayme E. Hopkins, '08