# Mirror Neurons & Consciousness

Social psychology often looks at the basic human need to fit in and calls 
this the normative social influence. When we grow up, our moral and 
ethical compass is almost entirely forged by our environment, so our 
actions are often a result of the validation we get from society.

But new developments in neuroscience are giving us a better understanding 
of culture and identity. Recent neurological research has confirmed the 
existence of empathetic mirror neurons. When we experience an emotion or 
perform an action, specific neurons fire. But when we observe someone else 
performing this action or when we imagine it, many of the same neurons will 
fire again as if we were performing the action ourselves. These empathy 
neurons connect us to other people, allowing us to feel what others feel. 
Since these neurons respond to our imagination, we can experience emotional 
feedback from them as if it came from someone else. This system is what 
allows us to self-reflect.

The mirror neuron doesn't know the difference between it and others and is 
the reason why we are so dependent on social validation and want to fit in. 
We are in a constant duality between how we see ourselves and how others 
see us. This can result in low self-esteem or a craving for attention as 
well as feeling that no one understands us or the urge to act against our 
own intentions for the validation of others.

Scans show that we experience these negative emotions even before we are 
aware of them. But when we are self-aware, we can alter misplaced emotions 
because we control the thoughts that cause them. This is a neurochemical 
consequence of how memories become labile when retrieved and are restored 
through protein synthesis. Self-observing profoundly changes the way our 
brain works. It activates the self-regulating neocortical regions which 
give us an incredible amount of control over our feelings. Every time we do 
this, our rationality and emotional resilience are strengthened. But when 
we're not being self-aware, most of our thoughts and actions are impulsive 
and the idea that we are randomly reacting and not making conscious choices 
can be instinctively frustrating. The brain resolves this by creating 
explanations for our behaviour and physically rewriting it into our 
memories, making us believe that we were in control of our actions. This is 
called backward rationalization and it leaves most of our negative emotions 
unresolved and ready to be triggered at any time. They become a constant 
fuel to our confusion as our brain will keep trying to justify why we 
behave irrationally.

All of this complex and almost schizophrenic subconscious behaviour is the 
result of a vastly parallel distributed system in our brain. There is no 
specific center of consciousness, the appearance of a unity is in fact each 
of these separate circuits being enabled and being expressed at one 
particular moment in time.

Our experiences are constantly changing our neural connections, physically 
altering the parallel system that is our consciousness. Direct modifications 
to this can have surreal consequences that bring into question what and 
where consciousness really is.

If your left cerebral hemisphere for example were to be disconnected from 
the right, as is the case in split brain patients, you would be able to 
speak, talk and think normally from the left hemisphere while your right 
hemisphere would have very limited cognitive capacities. Your left brain 
will not miss the right part, even though this profoundly changes your 
perception. One consequence of this is that you can no longer describe the 
right half of someone's face. But you'll never mention it, you'll never see 
it as a problem or even realize that something has changed. Since this 
affects more than just your perception of the real world and also applies 
to your mental images, it is not just a sensory problem but a fundamental 
change in your consciousness.