The Brain as Camera (Analogy)

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Among the many attempts to explain how (or if) the brain gives rise to consciousness, the analogy is often made, comparing the brain to a computer.

 

A simpler analogy is to compare the brain to a camera.  Just as does a computer, the camera takes input (in this case, light waves, photons) and converts them into an output, that is, a photograph.

 

However, the camera has a lens.  The purpose of the lens is to take the input, the light waves, and focus them in such a manner that the photograph will make sense to the person using the camera.

 

It would make no sense, of course, for the camera to take in the light waves (the input) only for its own use.  The user must be someone outside the camera.

 

Likewise, whether we compare the brain to a computer or to a camera, it would make no sense for the brain to take inputs (from neurons) without converting them to an output—but an output for whom?  If the function of the brain is to process inputs and convert them to outputs, we must ask, for whom is the output produced?

 

Of course, the analogy involves even greater questions, including the design and production of the device (be it camera, computer or brain), but for the purpose of this commentary, we need focus only on the question, who is the user?

 

Our conscious selves perceive that we are not our brains, but the users of our brains.  Just as music is not created by the musical instrument, but instead requires a composer and a player, so also, our thoughts come from outside our brain, and it is there that they are processed.  Just as your radio does not produce music, but relays it to you by converting radio waves to sound, so also, the brain does not produce consciousness.

 

Consciousness is proof that we are not physical beings, but spiritual beings inhabiting a physical body, in a physical world.  We travel through this world, but our home is the world of spirit.

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