The body in question

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Andrew Dinn asserts:
"Don't get this this theory even on its own evolutionary terms, never
mind baulking at the misappropriation of mental language to describe
raw physiology (although maybe therein lies the root of the evil). How
would it be useful to an animal to be `satisfied' yet not be aware
that it is satisfied i.e. have its behaviour thereby modified?
Contrariwise, if its behaviour is modified then it is in some sense
`aware' of it's own `satisfaction'. So, you could never have a
`pleasure circuit' which was not also involved in `mediating' the
effcts of pleasurable stimuli."


And yet--without sitting down to do an exact search--look at those passages
in GR where the elements of the body seem to be independent of whatever
consciousness inhabits it--the relationship of melanocytes (?) in skin
color and the CNS, the fat molecules migrating around Slothrop's body,
u.s.w.  If "human consciousness, that poor cripple" is an entity and not
just a constuct, it seems to be only one entity within the body that constitutes
the whole--which may or may not have something to do with dispersal of band-
widths as well.






On another note:
I just picked up Tim O'Brien's IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS, having admired and
enjoyed his previous books, especially THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.  This one
is apparently about a politician's wife who has disappeared.  In one of 
several chapters of "evidence" (bits and pieces--interviews, found memorabilia,
etc.), there on p. 26 are two paragraphs from COL49!


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)