Which came first, the neuron or the feeling? What was the universe like before there were any living beings around to observe it? Does it feel like anything to be a mushroom, or a bee, or a rock? What happens to your subjectivity when you die? I’m not sure we’ll ever know. But I do know that life gets richer when you contemplate that either one of these—the neuron and the feeling—could be the true underlying reality. That your feelings might not just be the deterministic shadow of chemicals bouncing around in your brain like billiard balls. That perhaps all self-organizing entities could have a consciousness of their own. That the universe as a whole might not be as dark and cold and empty as it seems when we look at the night sky. That underneath that darkness might be the faintest glimmer of light. Of sentience. A glimmer of light which turns back on itself, in the form of you, asking the question of whether the neuron comes first or the feeling. ( Bits of Wonder on Substack)
Which came first, the neuron or the feeling? What was the universe like before there were any living beings around to observe it? Does it feel like anything to be a mushroom, or a bee, or a rock? What happens to your subjectivity when you die?
I’m not sure we’ll ever know. But I do know that life gets richer when you contemplate that either one of t
... See moreSaved by Molly Simpson
consciousness — that ultimate lens of being, which shapes our entire experience of life and makes blue appear blue and gives poems their air of wonder — is not a mental activity confined to the brain but a complex embodied phenomenon governed by the nervous-system activity we call feeling.
When you wake each morning, you not only become freshly aware of your thoughts, you also resituate yourself in your body. We don’t experience the world purely in our minds, but as ‘embodied agents’, says Roy Salomon, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Haifa in Israel. Your sense of self is as connected to your limbs and guts as to the
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