I find James’ transmission theory, which holds consciousness operates through the brain rather than the brain producing consciousness, a beautiful poetic metaphor and one that can serve as a useful model for a distinct form of consciousness.

My concern is in James positioning the transmission theory in opposition to the production theory of consciousness; it may lead one to inappropriately judge them as mutually exclusive by confusing the two distinct form of consciousness as the same in question. The metaphor improperly lends it to mistake this consciousness as of the same category as when we speak of the more specifically human consciousness. It is in this personally human kind of consciousness that we tend to take any psychological comfort in for our immortality and so relevant to why it matters to most of us. What we care about the theory is that it allows for the emotional attitudes of our personality and personal memories of our relationships with others to be concluded as surviving death.

My worry more also lies in one being misled by this metaphor to take that there are ontological and ethical claims that can then be deduced from the functional dependence of consciousness on the brain, whether as a transmitting act or a productive act. The ontology one adopts can be quite consequential. When determining between contending ontologies, Quine’s ‘What There Is’ useful (we should accept the simplest ontology that fits our experience).

A disadvantage of James’ transmission theory is it lacks the ability to give a complete account. "If the human body corresponds to a colored glass ... then the living personality corresponds to the colored light that is the result of the glass.... Now while light in general will continue to exist without the colored glass ... the specific red or blue or yellow rays that the glass produces ... will certainly not persist if the glass [is] destroyed" ( In The Illusion of Immortality, Corliss Lamont p. 104).

Here is a video that has an ethical discussion motivated on what we suppose. "The Question of God": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymjuxVPBZYc