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So after thinking about it for a long time I think that actually I’m quite comfortable with what we’ve been learning these past few weeks. I can accept that the brain makes up the picture in the head…that there is no one picture, but rather a symphony of perception. I am also comfortable with the idea that because things like color, sound and even shape are not intrinsic properties of objects but rather a creation of our brains--every one’s perception of reality is a little different.

The question that remains…the aspect that bothers me a little…is the fact that the brain does all of this completely independent of the I-function. What then is the I-function for? Is it there at all? And if it is there…what does it actually do? Earlier on in the course I thought that eye function was responsible for things that we couldn’t actually see…like abstract concepts or dreams…things that our senses don’t actually perceive but that we will into existence by the power of our imagination. I’m thinking of monsters, fairy tales, philosophical concepts, perhaps even God...in short things that we have never seen, only imagined. It seems however that even this ability doesn’t really have anything to do with the I-function.

In my research for my paper on synesthesia for example I came across an account of people who experience colored synesthesia but who are in actual fact color blind. When they look at numbers they see them in color, even though their retinas have never been able to register the wavelengths that would produce a certain color in their minds. It would seem that their mind is creating the concept of color—color that has never been experienced from any outside source. And all this independent of the I-function. I guess for me this is a little disturbing, the fact that the mind cannot only create things like color from certain inputs like wavelengths, but that it can create color all on its own with out any inputs and without the I-function’s involvement.