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In our discussion on Thursday, what I found most interesting/confusing is the idea that our brains "generate output to get input". I have to say that the "flirting" really does not look like a good example for this notion: there has too be someone - or something - that makes us want to flirt with, and that is an input. I think breathing might be a better example for this statement. However, we might as well say, we breathe because our cells are alive - in a highly regulated microenvironment. From a material perspective, can we say that nervous system can generate output spontaneously under certain circumstances?

Of course, the techonology has not been developed enough for us to retain the bioactivity of a nervous system in vitro to directly observe this matter. But from what we know in the molecular biology, given the right chemicals, neurons can and will be activated by the electro-chemical gradient across the membrane. In this sense, there really isn't any output that is not generated by input - if we think that "certain circumstance" as an input.