But then he turns around and admits that we are frustratingly far from understanding how it all works. His frustration is understandable. In an excerpt from his new book, Know Thyself, Stephen J. Fleming points to two areas in the prefrontal cortex that may provide a clue:
In experiments at his lab at University College in London, he found that when volunteers were asked to think about themselves or remember events while under a scanner two key parts of the association cortex showed changes in activation (the medial PFC and the medial parietal cortex). But then he says… “we are still maddeningly far from a full understanding of how this machinery works” …
“Maddeningly far?” It’s not hard to see why Fleming finds the situation frustrating…
One thing we know is that complex thought processes like creativity are not necessarily localized. Even something as basic as vision seems to occur partly in the frontal lobes and partly in the visual area in the back of the brain.
And what about people who function with only half a brain or less? Even when we have fully present and functioning brains, there are good reasons for skepticism about how much brain scans can tell us about them (beyond whether parts are there or not and other basic information).
News, “We are closing in on the secret of self-awareness” at Mind Matters News
You may also wish to read:
Why the mind can’t just be the brain. Thinking it through carefully, the idea doesn’t even make sense. (Michael Egnor)
and
Your mind vs. your brain: Ten things to know