Oct 5, 2026 · 44 min · 14 segments
Feedback? Comments? Questions? Send us a text message now! Are you just a brain: 1.5kg of water, fat and firing neurons? Neuroscientist and author…
I- is used to mediate the mind and, and, and its decisions, the mind or the person's decisions in the world then, then become mediated through the brain to the rest of the body and, and into the world.
I wonder if we take it back to your question that you kind of posed to us, and we pose it back to you, which is-
... about understanding who we are, our consciousness.
You've spoken about this a little bit, but what are the limits of our current understandings of that in terms of neuroscience? Like, how far have people tried to go on, uh, go to explain what you said to us, which is like, without actually knowing people's thoughts and asking them, how do you know who someone is? Or how would you just...
How, how would you define that with science?
What are the limits or how far have people tried to push that?
Uh, I, I spent 15 plus years in the sciences and nobody, um, conducts science from a neutral perspective, and the presumed backdrop to the sciences is materialism, which is that matter is all that there is.
And so people bring a particular philosophy to their science, and they use that to interpret the science through that lens.
And so I guess I would say it's really important to understand what science can and can't tell us.
But when we start to try to use neuroscience to answer questions of human identity, human existence, and human purpose, I believe that we're pushing it beyond where it was intended to go.
Not that those aren't really important questions, but that neuroscience alone can't answer them.
And if you land on the answer that you are just your brain, you end up in some very tricky ground, actually, um, in terms of, you know, what we'll come to probably on free will and care of the elderly and, and all kinds of other things as well.
And actually, you know, the implication also, you know, if you are just your brain, is that your usefulness and your value is dictated by utility.
I- is used to mediate the mind and, and, and its decisions, the mind or the person's decisions in the world then, then become mediated through the brain to the rest of the body and, and into the world.
I wonder if we take it back to your question that you kind of posed to us, and we pose it back to you, which is-
... about understanding who we are, our consciousness.
You've spoken about this a little bit, but what are the limits of our current understandings of that in terms of neuroscience? Like, how far have people tried to go on, uh, go to explain what you said to us, which is like, without actually knowing people's thoughts and asking them, how do you know who someone is? Or how would you just...
How, how would you define that with science?
What are the limits or how far have people tried to push that?
Uh, I, I spent 15 plus years in the sciences and nobody, um, conducts science from a neutral perspective, and the presumed backdrop to the sciences is materialism, which is that matter is all that there is.
And so people bring a particular philosophy to their science, and they use that to interpret the science through that lens.
And so I guess I would say it's really important to understand what science can and can't tell us.
But when we start to try to use neuroscience to answer questions of human identity, human existence, and human purpose, I believe that we're pushing it beyond where it was intended to go.
Not that those aren't really important questions, but that neuroscience alone can't answer them.
And if you land on the answer that you are just your brain, you end up in some very tricky ground, actually, um, in terms of, you know, what we'll come to probably on free will and care of the elderly and, and all kinds of other things as well.
And actually, you know, the implication also, you know, if you are just your brain, is that your usefulness and your value is dictated by utility.
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