Yesterday's nytimes ran a provocative article about the brain, perception, and social conformity. It raises questions about group pressure, individual choice and conscience, and the processes by which a "reality" can be made or altered. I am intrigued, also, by the way they design these experiments and interpret the data--certainly open to debate. Recent advances in our ability to see the brain functioning are impressive and exciting, and the information we gather may be correlated to the experience of these functions, to the feeling of conscious thought and being--but that's the hard part.