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After Thursday's class, I was really baffled by the phemenon found in leeches where their nervous systems showed activity (output) in the absense of any environmental change (input). This shows that in the 'boxes within boxes' theory where 'inputs' trigger a series of reactions that lead to a final 'output', a reaction or a series of reactions can be triggered by something within the boxes that is not from the external world. An input can be created by the nervous system. I agree with Brie's post where she explained this input created by the nervous system as thoughts. While it is true many of our thoughts are stimulated and shaped by external information we receive, there are undeniably thoughts that we simply create. One example of such thinking is creativity. People can think of things that have never been seen or thought of before. Sure, these "new" thoughts can be based off of past experiences and older ideas, but the fact that people can think of these things without being cued by any external cue shows that our nervous system can act independently of its environment. Our nervous system not only detects and responds to our environment, but it can also create "inputs" like thoughts, motivation, ideas and it does not necessarily have to produce a corresponding output.