Abstract

This paper surveys the neuroscientific evidence that brain lesions and drug intoxication can not only disrupt mental functions like perception and motor control, but can also remove one’s very awareness that these functions are impaired or altered. Such deficits imply that consciousness of one’s mental faculties, no less than the faculties themselves, is a product of particular neural structures. But this is inconsistent with any view—such as the dualistic interactionism of John Eccles—that holds that the conscious self interacts with and uses the brain rather than being constituted by it. 1. The Mind-Body Problem -- 2. Dualism -- 3. Chemistry -- 4. Dreams -- 5. Hemineglect -- 6. The Transmission Analogy