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 I am not yet sure how I feel about the I-function idea.  I think there is an important distinction to be made between actions that are voluntary and actions that are involuntarily, but I don’t think an I-function is the way to go about it.  I also think there is a difference between involuntary actions like digestion or heartbeats and lack of control over actions like in the case of paralysis or alien hand syndrome.  I consider my digestive process and my heartbeat to be part of me, even though I don’t have direct willful control over them.  I was thinking about breathing as well.  When I’m not thinking about breathing, I breathe involuntarily.  When I am thinking about breathing, I can breathe manually.  And now that you’re reading this, you’re breathing manually as well.  Does this mean that breathing sometimes falls under the I-function and sometimes doesn’t?  Or does it mean that breathing is connected to more than one part of the nervous system?  What else is connected to more than one part of the nervous system?  What is the evolutionary advantage of having functions hooked up to multiple control centers?  Do other animals with brains have I-functions, even if we as humans don’t generally think they have a sense of self? 

I also think that involuntary movements such as what would happen were someone to pinch Christopher Reeve’s toe can be explained without having to resort to a concept like the I-function.  I think it’s adequate enough to say that not all outputs are the result of an input being processed by the brain.  We seem to be choosing to use the term “the brain” to refer to the whole nervous system in some cases and as a section of the nervous system in other cases.  I wonder if the issue of what is and is not governed by the brain might be cleared up by being more careful how we define the brain.