Well, explanations of mechanism can serve as verification that a hypothesis makes sense. Like, "this hypothesis fits with this demonstrable mechanism, isn't tha

Well, explanations of mechanism can serve as verification that a hypothesis makes sense. Like, "this hypothesis fits with this demonstrable mechanism, isn't that interesting?" If there are other hypotheses which one can study and find evidence for, that's of course also interesting. Regarding the discussion of whether the brain produces or receives consciousness, I have to say the distinction seems misguided. Nobody thinks that an individual brain is the pure origin of all perception and thought. That would be a kind of solipsism. We are embedded in a world, and the brain learns to interact with this world as it grows up. The brain is also "pre-populated" with stuff that evolution has selected; you emerge from your mother with a neural structure, and that structure isn't the source of itself. Popper's "three worlds" [1] don't require the brain to work in any mysterious way unknown to science. I don't think Popper made claims about the physical nature of reality. He was basically just refuting ontological theories that insist that there is only one world (the physical) or two worlds (the physical and the mental), by explaining a pluralist ontology where the creations of thought (e.g. poems) are also considered really existing. It reminds me of the recent philosophers of "object-oriented ontology," who also proclaim a pluralist ontology. And yeah, it is pretty much just philosophy: clarifying how to accurately think about the world. So you can have a philosophical discussion about whether a poem is to be considered an actual thing (e.g. a Platonic form) or a mere structure imposed on matter (or whatever). But that's tangential to the scientific investigation of how the brain works. I don't think scientists who study brain structures like those of the article really claim that the brain is the sole source of thought. That wouldn't make sense, because of course thought is influenced by extra-neural factors like language and interactions. And as I said in another comment, it seems obvious that the brain is a kind of radio, in that its major function is to perceive and react to the world around it. Anyway, this is a pretty subtle discussion and it's hard to flesh out sufficiently in forum comments! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds and http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/p/popper80.pdf http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/p/popper80....