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I liked the idea of the I-function being incorporated into the box we said was the nervous system. I was reading an article online by Steven Pinker that related well to this dilemma that we seem to be facing by trying define where this "I" sits in the brain.

 In the article, he says, "Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion." 

He goes on to explore the different reasons why we might be sealed off from what goes on in our mind; our unconscious and conscious minds separate.

 "Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers has noted that people have a motive to sell themselves as beneficent, rational, competent agents. The best propagandist is the one who believes his own lies."  

This is an interesting point to think about; that perhaps we are really just removing ourselves from reality to increase our own biological fitness and assure our survival.

 I especially like the idea of the philosopher Colin McGinn, whose ideas Pinker summarizes as, "The brain is a product of evolution, and just as animal brains have their limitations, we have ours. Our brains can't hold a hundred numbers in memory, can't visualize seven-dimensional space and perhaps can't intuitively grasp why neural information processing observed from the outside should give rise to subjective experience on the inside."  

I feel like this hits the nail on the head in terms of defining the problem we have been struggling with in class. We cannot comprehend how sensory input + a hunk of meat = emotions, consciousness, us. This has good evolution reason behind it, there is no need for us to understand; it wouldn't do anything to increase our biological fitness. In fact, subjunctive experience, our personality, everything we hold sacred, might just be side effects of cerebral cortex expansion due to its ability to increase group survival due to language skills for communication and reasoning for reciprocation.