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 The fact that the picture in our head is the result of a conglomerate of interconnected pathways, a pattern of activity across a number of neurons makes sense, especially in relation to creativity. I think the world would be an incredibly boring place if we all saw the world in the same way. Like we talked about in class, some of the greatest technological advances have been the result of creating a picture or story in one’s head of something that has never been seen before. Without this ability it might take ten times as long for the world to benefit from inventions such as the airplane or computer. Both of those were novel inventions, not simply updates of previously existing objects. Part of the excitement that accompanies the world of science is the ability to imagine a solution and then determine if it can be put into practice.  In my last web paper I wrote about the world of bionics, and specifically bionic arms. Before the first one was constructed no one ever thought that after an amputation they would ever use that limb again. And with what was probably considered to be an “outrageous” idea, amputees were given the chance to live more normally. The first prosthetic was realized via a picture in the head and made possible due to the notion that, because this picture is simply the brain’s best guess, the best guess allows us to bring into existence things that aren’t actually there.  

A large part of our “perception” of the world involves experiencing what we sense. It was interesting to determine, in class, that the picture in the head is being reported to the I-function and that the experience of the world can change without a functional I-function. In class we said that without the visual cortex you can see things, in the sense that you can respond to them, but you can’t experience seeing them. This is a strange phenomenon to imagine because so much of my understanding of the world involves experience, and making decisions and “guesses” about the world based on previous experiences. If this is true for the visual system, then it seems to me that it would apply to the other sense systems as well, maybe most particularly the auditory system. Does this apply to the other sensory systems? What about our sense of touch? How much of what we feel is just our brain creating a story?