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The nervous system is clearly a complicated web—similar stimuli lead to different responses while the opposite (varying stimuli resulting in comparable responses) can also occur. Perhaps even more perplexing is how the mind can receive input and seemingly produce no output or conversely generate an output with no noticeable input.
One of the obvious questions for me is how one can identify and quantify stimuli. Is it imperative that the stimulus is proximally temporal to the response? What constitutes the environment that triggers the response/output? If internal cues can generate responses, does that mean that our bodies are also part of the environment? If so, can we definitively state that the brain can randomly generate activity to promote an output? After all, it doesn’t seem logical that the brain would generate an idea or response without some form of input whether it is internal or external, tangible or intangible.
In addition, I am curious about the interconnected box model and its functionality. Similar inputs may produce different outputs, but I think this is because no two inputs or stimuli are exactly the same. On the other hand, differing outputs also seem to eventually follow pathways that produce the same output. The mediating factors are still unclear, they might come from boxes within boxes, some ethereal mind suggested by Descartes, or some other abstract concept we have yet to discuss. Since I am currently at a loss for how to investigate these boxes within boxes, I wonder if it is possible to explore the arrows that connect these boxes. Do they represent the neurons in the brain? If so, could technology eventually help us trace the electrochemical firings of neurons? If we can trace and predict the “arrow pathways,” maybe it will be possible to find out what lies within the “smallest box.”