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Caroline Feldman's picture

Class was very interesting

Class was very interesting this past week. I searched the web and found that researchers are starting to apply technology to find the “self” ("I" function) in the brain. Certainly the most crucial aspect of the self is self-awareness—the capacity the self possesses to reflect upon itself. This is important. If the self was unable to think about itself, it would not know that it exists. Without self-awareness there still would be a self but we would not know about it. We could not contemplate our existence and unpreventable death, describe who we are and develop an identity, have a sense of ownership (“I did this; this is part of who I am”), or recollect past personal experiences that at least partially explain why we are who we are. In light of this paramount significance of self-awareness, a more contemporary question is: What precise brain areas exhibit increased activity when people engage in self-reflection?

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