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The phrase ‘output without input’ immediately makes me think of instinctive actions. Granted an instinctive action is the result of a key stimulus which activates specific mechanisms and a fixed action pattern occurs (Wikipedia). Instinctive actions are the result of input into the system, but unless overridden by intelligence can cause an organism (humans included) to act “without thinking.” The idea of being able to override a “fight or flight” mechanism with intelligence is something that I want to return to later, but right now just focus on the instinct part. I would guess that everyone will admit to acting without thinking, or once in a while to feeling like you are on “auto-pilot,” both of which loosely sound like outputs with no input. Reactions and instincts are what we claim to be a subconscious response that has developed from memory and learning. Would an infant be capable of output without input or does this theory only apply to humans with more experiences? I certainly think that living in the type of world which we do we are constantly exposed to stimuli in many different forms and our brain reacts to this stimuli in many different ways.

What I am trying to get at is the fact that even though it seems like there are outputs without inputs, I’m not really buying it. Humans operate in a world dependent on sense-experience. There is no way that a human can even conceive to be in a situation that doesn’t involve input (and please, no one should suggest that a human in a vacuum is not receiving input for two reasons: (1) because no one here has experienced being in a vacuum so I don’t think we should make assumptions and (2) because (philosophically speaking) if you were in a vacuum you would be receiving input about what it is to be in a vacuum; but I digress…).

Furthermore I am concerned with the implications of having outputs without inputs. From what we know now about the brain and how it operates, I might be able to accept that there may be some situations that may seem like there is an output without an input, but I also think that this theory has some serious consequences. Here is where I want to look at some unique human characteristics, name intelligence and consciousness, specifically examining these with reference to free-will. If human acts of consciousness are acts of output without input then we are challenging the nature of human free-will. Acts of free-will are the result of a conscious being, one who is thinking and making decisions about their environment and physical situation. Humans make free-willed decisions (output) after considering and processing all relevant information (input). If there can be output without input then consciousness may not be under our control as much as we would like to think. This further implies that free-will may not be the result of a linear process (input to output) but rather may be a construction of our brain or genes or whatever.

This brings me to my last point: the idea of the brain as boxes within boxes. What is the point of boxing things up anyway? Why are we trying to limit the brain; its connections and its capacity are far beyond the scope of boxes, symbols and arrows. I think the “box model” is an improvement on the “spaghetti model” but I don’t think it’s sufficient. The brain is an interdisciplinary organ, in the sense that many different areas communicate and control each other and I think it is a bit ill-conceived to think we can map out the brain by categorizing it and putting it into boxes. Not only are there more neurons than we can count, but weren’t we just saying last week how little we know about the brain? We say there is no input as the cause of an output and that may be true, but we are considering the brain in such a linear style: why does the brain have to be so straightforward and fit so nicely into boxes? Frankly, I much prefer to think of the brain as complicated until proven otherwise.