It's unclear why and how neurons firing in the brain produces subjective experience. This is the hard problem of consciousness. Why should there be something that it's like to, say, feel pain or see the color red? My opinion is that the subjectivity of consciousness is attributable to physical differences in neuroanatomy and to the closed nature of neural processes. Our synapses only fire in our own brains, and our interpretations of our experiences can only come from us, even if something outside us influences them. I suspect that neurotransmission produces subjective experience as a matter of course. That's one of the things our brains are adapted to do. Consciousness, in my opinion, is the ability to think about the extremely complex webs of associations that our minds naturally create. Qualia make these webs stronger. Furthermore, I submit that interpretation, sensory integration, and high-level cognitive processes are all dependent on neurotransmission. There...
My name is Ryan. I'm a published author, a musician, and a cartoonist, and I'm autistic. My therapist suggested that I write a book about living with an autism spectrum disorder. I decided to try a blog first. I try to be clear and succinct in describing my experiences. I don't feel like I have special insight, but maybe this will help some people.