Reply to comment

There were so many things that were addressed in the forum so far- it’s a bit overwhelming so first I am going to address the neocortex and then the “I-Function”. To back track a bit to Jean’s post about the actual function of the neocortex, of course, it seems that there is no way to actually determine all of the functions that it can do but, I did ask my best friend, Wikipedia, about it and it says that the neocortex is “involved in higher functions such as sensory perception, generation of motor commands, spatial reasoning, conscious thought and in humans, language”. Utilizing that general definition of the neocortex, it seems that the function of the area of the brain essentially defines us as an individual which is kind of a scary thought. If this part of the brain is damaged, it erases of us being the humans that we are today. Jean also brought up another important concept along with the use of the neocortex and that is evolution. It is imperative to understand that the neocortex has evolved over thousands of years to reach the point that it has in human’s today- if we didn’t have the function of the neocortex that we can safely assume that we just wouldn’t be as highly evolved.  Nana brought up the insects in her post and justifies that even though these organisms lack a highly developed brain they still retain certain instincts including survival, reproduction and social community. The neocortex is extremely important to us as human beings but could we survive without it, yea, we could.  This thought involves the thoughts of the philosopher that Anna brought up that summarized the brain as a product of evolution that in fact has limitations. We all possess limitations in higher thinking- it could be that we lack stellar mathematics skills or problem solving techniques…all of these things could be rectified if we were to concentrate on these certain things and improve upon them thus making our intelligence increase and hopefully, these skills would be passed on to the next generation. The brain which includes the neocortex is clearly a product of evolution in my opinion.  Also changing the subject to the “I-Function”, this concept absolutely fascinates me. When we were discussing Christopher Reeve, the power of the brain and the nervous system and all that came with it was simply mind boggling to say the least.  I am not exactly sure how to formulate my opinion of the “I-Function” into words so I will not attempt to confuse myself and others but I will say that I look forward to hearing more about it and the importance and role that it plays in the conscious and unconscious.