If our consciousness is created by our brain, why can’t our brain then send signals around the body in order to do something we want/need?

Question

Examples:

If I receive the results from a blood test and it shows my testosterone levels are well below average – not affected by any external factors. Why can’t my brain then send signals to create more testosterone?

If I’m feeling tired and can’t sleep, why can’t I sleep even though I need it?

Why is the brain just reactive and pro-active? Why are we not able to control things like the examples above? Is there a limit to how much our consciousness plays a part in our internal bodily functions? If so why? The part of the brain who handles consciousness is still part of the brain so why can’t it communicate these things?

In: 4

Answer 1

This is a *super* complex question and there are many overlapping and incomplete answers.

[Disclaimer – I am an AI researcher with a limited background in neuroscience and bioinformatics; I am not fully qualified to answer this question and if someone more qualified comes along, listen to them instead of me]

The short answer is that your consciousness, your cognition, your awareness – probably everything you consider “you” – seems to *mostly* happen in the outermost layers of your brain. The majority of your brain is not something that “thinks” in the way that you consciously experience.

Your conscious brain says “walk” but it doesn’t (usually) coordinate the actual locomotion. That’s something else called the “ventral spinocerebellar tract neurons”.

In the extreme cases, when the doctor hits your knee with that little hammer and your leg kicks out, your brain has nothing to do with it at all. Your knee gets hit, the signal goes up to your spine and your spine fires back a signal which causes your muscle to contract.

Your conscious parts are part of you but you are not a little remote control piloting a meat robot. Control of your body is a distributed process, and most of what happens is not something that your prefrontal cortex decides. Your whole nervous system – the conscious bits, the subconscious bits, the bits that aren’t even in your brain – all of these **cooperate** to keep you alive and working. Your conscious self might feel like it has full executive control (and it is remarkably powerful) but it isn’t sitting in a little control room with access to all the levers.