ABSTRACT
Memory, language, and even thoughts seem to have substance and brain location, but consciousness floats like a ghost throughout our head. If there is anything that apparently supports the mind-body dualism it is consciousness. Humphrey's model, accounting for the origin of consciousness, is compatible with the hypothesis that concept formation, language, and consciousness are tactile-kinesthetic in origin. A theory of consciousness expounded by the neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinas suggests that the attention mechanism is related to a neural scanning of the sensory areas of the cortex by waves of electrical activity originating in a lower brain structure called the thalamus. Whatever is in the brain—electrical rhythms, genetic knowledge, rules of the mind, thoughts, emotions, concepts, consciousness—is coded neurologically to allow the organism to track and anticipate the environment. Consciousness allowed the organism to monitor important changes in its environment and glimpse within itself the knowledge and operations that might be used to solve particular problems.
