Pierre Cabanis: "The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." 1802
John Elliotson: "thought ... seems as much function of organ, as bile of liver." c. 1840
Karl Vogt: ‘The brain secretes thought as the stomach secretes gastric juices, the liver bile, and the kidneys urine.’ 1852
G. F. Stout: 'When we say that digestion is a function of the stomach, we mean that digestion is the stomach engaged in digesting. ... But if we describe the brain at work, there is no need to mention consciousness at all. ... If consciousness is supposed to be produced by the nervous process, the production is simply creation out of nothing.' 1899
Update (Oct. 19, 2009) -- John Searle: 'On the view of mental states adopted in this essay, mental states and processes are real biological phenomena in the world, as real as digestion, photosynthesis, lactation or the secretion of bile.' 1987
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