Notes from "Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from The Biology of Consciousness," by Alva Noë

Are you your brain, or something else?


In this book Alva Noë presents his well-informed view of modern thinking and research on consciousness and the brain. He does not subscribe to the mainstream consensus.

Are we governed by unconscious processes?: David Eagleman and Raymond Tallis

 First point, then counterpoint.

POINT. As much as we like to think about the body and mind living separate existences, the mental is not separable from the physical. The brain is utterly alien to us, and yet our personalities, hopes, fears and aspirations all depend on the integrity of this biological tissue. How do we know this? Because when the brain changes, we change.

Time, Consciousness, & The Human Brain

When David Eagleman was eight years old, he fell off a roof and kept on falling. In the years since, Eagleman has collected hundreds of stories like his, and they almost all share the same quality: in life-threatening situations, time seems to slow down. If Eagleman’s body bears no marks of his childhood accident, his mind has been deeply imprinted by it. He is a man obsessed by time.

V.S. Ramachandran on God, the temporal lobes, and mystical experience.

Part 1. Subject as above.



Part 2. On emotional salience and religious or mystical experiences. Emotional reactions to moral atrocities committed to other people, and omnipotence. Are all brains wired for religious belief? Watch it here.