Neurons, neurons, neurons

During the last three decades, neuroscientists throughout the world have proved the nervous system in fascinating detail and have learned a great deal about the last laws of mental life and about how these laws emerge from the brain. The pace of progress has been exhilarating, but- at the same time- the findings make many people uncomfortable. It seems somehow disconcerting to be told that your life, all your hopes, triumphs and aspirations simply arise from the activity of neurons in your brain.

But far from being humiliating, this idea is ennobling. I think.

Science - cosmology, evolution and especially brain sciences- is telling us that we have no privileged position in the universe and that our sense of having private nonmaterial soul "watching the world" is really an ilusion.

Once you realize that far from being a spectator, you are in fact part of the eternal ebb and flow of events in the cosmos, this realization is very liberating. Ultimately this idea also allows you to cultivate certain humility...

Humility...

Humility...

Humility...

Phantoms in the Brain

Sandra Blakeslee & V.S. Ramachandran