A couple of weeks ago I posted some musings about “the self” in anticipation of being on a panel with Steven Pinker (author of The Blank Slate and The Stuff of Thought) and Noga Arikha (author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours) at Tufts University. The panel, convened by Jonathan Wilson, was titled “The New Biology and the Self,” and what follows was my contribution. The graduate student referred to is Monica Chau of Emory University.
I told a very smart neurobiology graduate student named Monica yesterday that I’d been asked to speak on “The New Biology and the Self.” She said, “What’s the new biology?” I said, “I don’t know, but that’s the least of my problems. What’s the self?” Read more
Tagged brain imaging
What is “the Self”?
And assuming we can answer that, how is science changing it?
Big philosophical concepts bother me, but I am expected later this week at Tufts University, where I’ll be on a panel discussing “The New Biology and the Self.” So I need to get over my reluctance to talk about the self. And it’s not the only big idea that gives me trouble.
Consciousness and free will are two other notions Read more
Brain-Reading
What if a stranger could see into your mind?
“A penny for your thoughts,” my mother used to say when I was brooding. As I got on into my teen years, she was less and less likely to get her money’s worth, and–even corrected for inflation and then some–I would probably have gotten even less out of my own kids.
But suppose parents didn’t have to offer even a penny’s worth of bribes? Suppose they could switch on some new technological marvel and know their kids’ thoughts?