I have thought about brains and consciousness a fair bit, looking at thought experiments like the "Chinese nation" where each Chinese citizen simulates the activity of a neuron, and I came up with one of my own where a pattern of neural activity is perfectly recorded from a brain and then the neurons are disconnected from each other and activated according to the recording, I was thinking in terms of some "pattern of illumination", but just now I have realised the essential question that is what would it mean for a neuron to illuminate without actual communication with other neurons? so what is it that a neuron does except get told by other neurons tell other neurons to tell other neurons to tell other neurons etc.?