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"On its own this trigger, as we can see from the earlier definition, is not going to generate consciousness. Imagine a candyfloss machine with a stick in the centre that then gathers more and more candyfloss as time goes on. Think of the epicentre as the stick in the centre, the burgeoning candyfloss being analogous to the recruitment of the cells. The stick in itself is not the candyfloss, it is just the trigger for it, just as the stone does not contain the ripples but causes their generation."

— Greenfield, Susan (b. 1950)

Author

Soul, Brain, and Mind

Place of Publication

London and New York

Publisher

Routledge

Date

1999

Metaphor

"On its own this trigger, as we can see from the earlier definition, is not going to generate consciousness. Imagine a candyfloss machine with a stick in the centre that then gathers more and more candyfloss as time goes on. Think of the epicentre as the stick in the centre, the burgeoning candyfloss being analogous to the recruitment of the cells. The stick in itself is not the candyfloss, it is just the trigger for it, just as the stone does not contain the ripples but causes their generation."

Metaphor in Context

First let us consider the epicentre. On its own this trigger, as we can see from the earlier definition, is not going to generate consciousness. Imagine a candyfloss machine with a stick in the centre that then gathers more and more candyfloss as time goes on. Think of the epicentre as the stick in the centre, the burgeoning candyfloss being analogous to the recruitment of the cells. The stick in itself is not the candyfloss, it is just the trigger for it, just as the stone does not contain the ripples but causes their generation. What in the brain could mediate this epicentre, this trigger? Another rather simplistic analogy might be a boss, at the centre of a big organization that is eventually going to recruit managers and submanagers. What in the brain could be the equivalent of the boss? The most obvious candidate, and one that might immediately spring to mind, is the basic component of the brain, the neuron, or brain cell. [...]
(pp. 112-3)