logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2024
37m 56s

Ep54 "Where do you end and others begin?...

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

From the brain’s point of view, what is the self? How do 30 trillion cells come to feel like a single entity? Does the "self" of a blind person include the tip of her walking stick? How flexible is our sense of self? And what does any of this have to do with psychedelics, trauma, synchronized swimmers, religious rituals, cheerleaders, or why soldiers across time and place love to march in lockstep? Join Eagleman for this week's episode of surprises about how the brain computes the self.

Up next
Oct 26
Re-Release "What is color? Part 1: Why hunters wear orange"
This week we reach into the archive for one of the most popular episodes of Inner Cosmos. Why do birds and bees choose different flowers? Why do mammals' eyes seem to be optimized for moving around at night, and what does that have to do with hairless humans getting angry? What d ... Show More
37m 36s
Oct 19
Ep175 Who Are You When Your Brain Changes? with Robert Kolker
Is your personality written into the circuitry of your brain? With brain disease, can someone lose who they are without realizing it? What happens when the person changing is the only one who can't see it? What does it mean to love someone whose personality has become unrecogniza ... Show More
43m 2s
Oct 12
Ep174 "Can Evolution Teach AI?" with Athena Aktipis
How do you get trillions of cells to collaborate as the single organism that we call you? Does that kind of cooperation create opportunities for hijacking -- for example, is cancer a form of "cellular cheating"? Can we take the lessons learned from biology and apply them to under ... Show More
53 m
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2023
Where does your sense of self come from? A scientific look | Anil Ananthaswamy
Our memories and bodies give us clues about who we are, but what happens when this guidance shifts? In this mind-bending talk, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy shares how the experiences of "altered selves" -- resulting from schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, foreign limb syndrome or ot ... Show More
13m 53s
Oct 2020
How Do You Sense Your Own Body -- And How Can That Go Wrong?
There's a sixth sense that we're not often aware of -- the sense of controlling and owning our own bodies. Learn how proprioception works -- and what happens to people when it doesn't work -- in this episode of BrainStuff. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpod ... Show More
7m 21s
Sep 2022
Inside Out: Why Do We Have Feelings?
Do you ever look at someone and wonder, ‘What is going on inside their head?’” That’s right folks! We are finally discussing Inside Out! We tackle the eternal question: Why Do We Have Feelings?? We also discuss emotional intelligence, the idea of good feelings vs bad feelings, an ... Show More
1h 17m
Sep 2022
Ep 145: Minds
What is a mind? Can we pin it down? To what do the pronouns "I" and "you" really refer? Is the mind different to its contents? What do we know and what are we struggling still to understand? 
7m 9s
Oct 2022
48. Identity Crisis!
What does identity really mean? And how do we know when we’ve found it, can we ever truly embody our ‘true selves’? In this episode we discuss what it means to undergo massive shifts in our identity and come out of it the other side and how we might assist that journey.See omnyst ... Show More
40m 6s
Jun 2017
True You
What happens when you discover a part of yourself that is so different from who you think you are? Do you hold on to your original self tightly? Do you explore this other self? We travel to England to meet an insect with a split personality. Then we talk to an internet famous car ... Show More
35m 59s