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Though not intuitive for me, it makes sense that the “I-Function” is itself a box within a box connected to other boxes… Perhaps it is humans’ ability to define and recognize self, as others have mentioned, that separates us from other mammals.

I am interested in the brains of children who are raised isolated from human contact, whether neglected or “reared” amongst wild animals, so-called feral children (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child ). While there is a range of effects the lack of connectedness and stimulation from other humans is the unifying factor. There has been some discussion in the previous posts as to what behaviors define humans, therefore might lead to a larger neocortex than other mammals. My question is, if the neocortex does play a role in higher-order thinking and the ability to define “I” vis-à-vis other humans, how does being raised without group interactions alter or shape the notion of “I” and what is the role of the neocortex? What happens under conditions of sensory deprivation? Do boxes degrade or atrophy if not utilized? Are we hard-wired to survive such conditions or is there no “self-preservation” of the “I-Function” itself? And, if behavior is a pattern of coordinated activity across many outputs, if those patterns are not exercised and very few patterns are produced, does one lose or never actually gain the ability to create these patterns (as specific to children raised in isolation)? Is the Physical Contiguity Principle a series of inherited connections or an infinite set of potential connections within the nervous system?

Behaviorally, many animals do exhibit traits that we tend to ascribe only to humans. Is it anthropomorphizing to draw attention to the many traits other mammals exhibit that suggest a subtlety of “feeling” not simply explained by evolutionary advantage and instinct? For example, elephants, in particular, have been studied in great depth and appear to form very closely-knit social groups and even seem to express what we would call “grief” (The book When Elephants Weep by Jeffery Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy discusses this and other such phenomenon). So, if elephants do, indeed “grieve” for their kin, and have a strong sense of bonding that cannot be explained by evolutionary advantage and instinct alone, the neo-cortices of humans must yet contain even greater subtlety? However, how can we know for certain that our explanation for the behavior of the elephants truly stems from the way in which the “boxes” of these great mammals are arranged? And as Angel pointed out, the ability to “feel” does not necessarily translate into the understanding of the complex web of socio-cultural and neuronal underpinnings that shaped such feeling…

If the “self” is a box within the nervous system, the dualism of conscious and unconscious seem less murky. In schizophrenia, are there two (or more) boxes vying for the “I-Function” or is there a neurochemical input that alters the output?