Excellent post except for one thing--the flu vaccine every year is the best guess vaccine-makers can come up with. Some years they get it right, some years they don't. So some years it might prevent deaths and some years it might not. It's not a given that getting a flu vaccine will prevent you from coming down with or dying from the flu du jour. In the case of this swine flu, the pressure is on to get it right and delay the spread of the disease until they can make enough vaccine to distribute effectively. In other years, the vaccine is made based on predictions of which strain will be circulating and in order to be ready for flu season, has to be prepared before it's known for certain which strain will, in fact, be prevalent.

Raenelle - I worry about what all this insane media frenzy is going to do to this unpretentious person, too. In my experience, human egos really do not fare well with this level of success, whether it comes out of nowhere, like in her case, or is constant, like in Britney Spears'. My husband was watching some clips of interviews with her and her look had already changed. She looked "prettier," I suppose, in a slick sort of way, but she was already not looking like the person who performed "I Dreamed a Dream."

And to all of you offended by the "ugly" moniker - I could not agree more. I hate the fact that she's been referred to as "ugly." Yes, she just looks like a regular person! If we're not Barbies and Kens, we're ugly?? I thought she had a charming flash in her eye as well, and her brash attitude in the midst of all that phoniness and snark was very appealing. Not to mention her poise and her wonderful voice. (I never watch this show because of the snark factor, BTW; just had Boyle's clip forwarded to me.)

It's true that part of what was so thrilling about her triumph, as Sarah Hepola pointed out, was that she completely confounded this arrogant, judgmental bunch and their followers. And I enjoyed that quite a bit myself. But it's very unfortunate that media feeding frenzies do tend to destroy the objects of their attention; I hope this doesn't happen to her. It might be nice, as other posters have suggested, to have more genuine, un-"packaged" people in our focus so that the accomplishments of someone like Boyle isn't perceived as such a freak occurrence.

Well, I read Damasio and Sacks. And I enjoy them thoroughly. There are lots of different ways to look at and approach this issue and it's going to be a very, very long time--if ever--that anyone can say with certainty exactly what's going on. I personally don't have any problem with that. But what I find odd, for people who are supposedly so "scientific," which means, by extension (from all the reading that I've done in this arena) that they're supposedly not "emotional," that they get so angry when someone wants to say maybe the brain doesn't equal consciousness. Scientistic devotees love to accuse those who want to reserve their opinion on some of these topics (propose, for example, that maybe there is something more than the brain that constitutes consciousness): well, you just WANT there to be something more. So I would like to ask the angry scientism devotees, why do you WANT there not to be? Your anger at an opposing view makes it very clear that you care very much. Care emotionally. Of course, it's a specious argument anyway. Just because I want to live in the house I'm living in, doesn't meant that I don't live here.

Here's where I personally have trouble with the brain equaling consciousness theory: It doesn't explain a number of experiences I've had throughout my life. Perhaps someone here can explain how my brain as currently envisioned, could have been "responsible" for the following experiences: I was driving down a road in my neighborhood one evening, and as I know the road very well, I know exactly how fast I can safely take each curve. But then I rounded a curve and there were two people walking with their backs to the traffic in my lane. I slammed on the brakes but it was too late not to plough into them--except that, when I came to a stop, shaking like crazy, I realized that there was nobody there. A hallucination, i figured. But even so, I realized I was driving too fast. If there had been someone there, I would have run into them. So I slowed down and around the next blind curve, there they were! How did I "know" they would be there? My brain had no information along these lines. And here's another example. One year, my husband's uncle was dying from lymphoma and kidney failure. No one expected him to live past the summer. But I had a dream one night where I was telling his aunt that her husband would in fact live until the end of the year. I woke up thinking this was nothing but wishful thinking. It seemed impossible that he could live longer than a few weeks. But in fact, he died shortly after the turn of the year half a year later. How could my brain possibly have known that? And these are just two examples. I could give dozens but won't bore you with any more. I'm sure someone will accuse me of making them up anyway.

I do find it perplexing that supposedly scientific people, who should know that there is always more information around the bend that will throw everything we think we "know" into doubt, can be so certain and contemptuous of others who prefer to reserve their judgment and certainty.

That said, I hope that Noe's book is a little more clear and articulate than this interview.