Time and time again, as we will see, the brilliant forebears of modern neuroscience abandoned their fierce reasoning skills and, deus ex machina, thr… - Michael S. Gazzaniga

The psychology professor Richard Aslin once commented to me that he felt the idea of “consciousness” was a proxy for a whole host of variables correlated with our mental lives. We use “consciousness” as shorthand to easily describe the functions of a multitude of inborn, instinctual mechanisms such as language, perception, and emotion. It becomes evident that consciousness is best understood as a complex instinct as well. All of us come with a bucketful of instincts. Our incessant thought pattern jumps around. We have feelings about one idea, then its opposite, then our family, then an itch, then a favorite tune, then the upcoming meeting, then the grocery list, then the irritating colleague, then the Red Sox, then … It goes on and on until we learn, almost against our natural being, to have a linear thought.

Spontaneous smiles are different. They utilize a totally different neurologic hardware that is diffuse and arises mostly out of the subcortex and something called the extra-pyramidal system.

Young children by age three begin to inhibit some of their naturally altruistic behavior. They become more discriminating about whom they help. They share more often with others who have shared with them in the past.