The Self Illusion: Why There is No You Inside Your Head

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• Professor Bruce Hood
• Wednesday 26 February 2014, 21:00-22:00
• Nihon Room, Pembroke College.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Graham Edgecombe.

Most of us believe that we exist as a self – an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body – the ‘me’ inside me – is compelling and inescapable. This is how we interact as a social animal and judge each other’s actions and deeds. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances. Rather than a single entity, the self is really a constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create theillusion of the internal you. We only emerge as a product of those around us as part of the different storylines we inhabit from the cot to the grave. It is an every changing character, created by the brain to provide a coherent interface between the multitude of internal processes and the external world demands that require different selves.

This talk is part of the Stokes Society, Pembroke College series.

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• Guy Emerson's list
• Nihon Room, Pembroke College
• PMRFPS's
• Stokes Society, Pembroke College

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