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The French philosopher and scientist René Descartes famously wrote,

I think, therefore I am.

But he was getting at in part is that though our senses might deceive us, the act of thinking

was proof of our own existence.

But reflect on that sentence again.

I think, therefore I am.

Who in that short declaration is I? Scientists call that I, that

subjective sense of self, consciousness. And understanding what consciousness is, how it functions,

and where it lives in the brain, has plagued researchers for generations. I spoke with

Siam's associate editor, Alison Partial, to learn more about the search for consciousness.

So you recently reported a feature in the February issue of Scientific American on consciousness.

What kind of sparked your interest in the subject?

Well, I studied cognitive science in college, and consciousness is kind of the big question that looms over a lot of neuroscience, whether it's like being addressed head on or not.

There were these really famous split brain studies many decades ago where people who were having seizures and they would try to address it by cutting basically the connections between the two brain hemispheres.

And this would result in some really weird things where like there was there was information in your brain that you had, but you weren't

conscious of because consciousness was like in one side of the brain and not able to access

...