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Like Margaux and many others I am having a hard time grasping how the organ inside my skull can operate independently of anyting my body experiences. Don't any of the principles of causality apply to the brain- don't you need some sort of input to get an output? The environment contained within the brain may never be fully understood but it is still difficult for me to accept that the big box and all of its little boxes really don't need me- even though they are largely what make me me. During class I had a thought that hasn't left me all weekend. Once in a while it seems like my daily experiences are occuring without me present, like I am observing a conversation that I'm engaged in from outside of myself or detatched from "I." Could this awareness/ experience be only the result of too little sleep or rather my thoughts and actions (and everything that makes up the I) functioning without the recognition or real use of inputs but instead as an independent entity? This gets back dualism, consciousness/ unconsciousness and my own puzzlement.