Workings of the Brain

Chris at Develintel Blog posts on "Selection Efficiency and Inhibition." The brain must constantly choose between alternative interpretations of sensory input or other parallel mental activities. Why does the brain choose one interpretation and inhibit others?
It is an interesting question. Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained and before that Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind dealt with this issue. Doug Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, touched more tangentially on the same idea.

The Eide Neurolearning Blog presents and interesting look at the difference in neural imaging of direct self-reflection (thinking about yourself) and reflected self-reflection (thinking about what you think others are thinking about you). The phenomenon of a person being "without a soul", or put another way, without a sense of self, is related to this concept. Can a person be so immersed in what he thinks others are thinking about him, that he never builds an inner sense of who he is?