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Like Crick and Emily Dickinson, I have always held the belief that the brain and other components of the nervous system were completely responsible for all aspects of behavior.  However, I also agree with Caroline’s comments about what we call “consciousness.”  Reacting to stimuli in a purely physical way is one thing, but being fully aware of what is happening around us, and having opinions, etc…is another. 

            Never having believed in the concept of a “soul”, and being disinclined to see the “mind” as a separate entity, but nevertheless feeling that an individual’s unique thoughts and opinions were important and did not deserve to be reduced to chemical interactions, I have had trouble articulating exactly how I feel about consciousness and behavior.  After much consideration, I think that my views can be summed up most accurately in the idea that the “mind” or “consciousness” is an emergent property of the nervous system (an emergent property, as I understand it, being a property of a system that is unlike/unable to be explained by properties of the individual components of the system).  That, somehow, all of the nerve impulses, and received signals, and physical and chemical responses can combine to produce a thought in the individual, which then becomes a part of that individual’s knowledge.  Since all individuals other than identical twins have some genetic differences, and since no two individuals can have the exact same set of experiences (or, to look at it physically, be exposed to the exact same set of stimuli, in the exact same order) every day, all people could then be expected to have unique collections of thoughts, opinions, and reactions/behavior to different situations. 

            So, though I see consciousness as property of the brain, and hence agree with the statement “brain=behavior”, I still find the experience to be amazing, and think that the thoughts and ideas of others are no less valuable than they would be were they generated by some separate entity.