I have, for one, avoided the issue of CONSCIOUSNESS mainly because there seems to me to be several definitions. Normally these simply start with stating that consciousness is what we lose when we become unconscious, sleep or go into a coma. Once this defition has been made the discussion moves on to abilities that are much more than merely the thing we have lost - including things like the sub-consciousness, the non-consciousness and the pre-consciousness.
Mostly what we are interested in when we enter these discussions is whether a decision is made consciously. In marketing discussions we rapidly get into discussions whether brand decisions or advertising interpretation decisions are made subconsciously. These discussions are so far removed from the start defition of consciousness being a state where we are not conscious that the definition is irrelevant.
This does not mean that I am not reading about the consciousness, and where it is in the brain.
Here is Prof. Antonio Damasio talking about the consciousness at TED.
I like his argument that we map our bodily state and we map the environment and we try to optimize the state of the body by comparing the maps, and that FEELINGS and MEMORIES guide us.
I am not convinced that the DECISIONS we make - i.e. how we optimize our bodily state - actually are made in the brainstem. But, I may be wrong because I am indoctrinated by the popular thinking that this happens in the frontal lobes.
I would be more open to a model that postulates that the brain stem does notify us of an imbalanced in our bodily state that requires attention by the facilities in our brain that can evaluate the alternatives available to us and that this is not necesarily in the brain stem.
A part of the answer to this will have to come from evolution. Are creatures with lesser cortices not able to make decisions? What is the difference between the decisions that we make versus those that creatures with lesser cortices make?
