If You Measure Someone's Brain And See

You Gleefully Say, "i Just Thought Of Something!", When In Fact Your Brain Performed An Enormous Amount Of Work Before Your Moment Of Genius Struck. When An Idea Is Served Up From Behind The Scenes, Your Neural Circuitry Has Been Working On It For Hours Or Days Or Years, Consolidating Information And Trying Out New Combinations. But You Take Credit Without Further Wonderment At The Vast, Hidden Machinery Behind The Scenes.

One Of The Most Pervasive Mistakes Is To Believe That Our Visual System Gives A Faithful Representation Of What Is "out There" In The Same Way That A Movie Camera Would.

Even While It's True That We Are Tied To Our Molecules And Proteins And Neurons - As Strokes And Hormones And Drugs And Microorganisms Indisputably Tell Us - It Does Not Logically Follow That Humans Are Best Described Only As Pieces And Parts.

It Turns Out That Dopamine Is A Chemical On Double Duty In The Brain. Along With Its Role In Motor Commands, It Also Serves As The Main Messenger In The Reward Systems, Guiding A Person Toward Food, Drink, Mates, And All Things Useful For Survival. Because Of Its Role In The Reward System, Imbalances In Dopamine Can Trigger Gambling, Overeating, And Drug Addiction - Behaviors That Result From A Reward System Gone Awry.

Consciousness Is The Smallest Player In The Operations Of The Brain.