#146 The Most Complicated Thing in the Universe: What is the Brain?
Within Reason
Alex J O'Connor
4.9 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2026
⏱️ 146 minutes
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Summary
Matthew Cobb is a British zoologist and Emeritus professor of zoology at the University of Manchester.
Get his book, The Idea of the Brain: A HistoryCloser to Truth's Map of Consciousness: loc.closertotruth.com/mapTIMESTAMPS:0:00 The Heart or the Head?4:13 Medicine in the Ancient World12:25 Why Don’t We Accept Evidence?18:34 From Ancient to Modern Understanding29:29 When Did We Reach a Consensus on the Brain?37:41 Electricity in the Brain39:58 Our Metaphors for the Brain44:15 Is the Brain Segmented or Whole?01:05:20 Why is Speech Governed by the Left Hemisphere?01:18:55 Why is the Brain Split Into Two Hemispheres?01:23:06 Where in the Brain Does Consciousness Originate?01:32:46 The Ladybug Robot01:35:08 Back to Consciousness01:45:27 What is a Neuron?01:56:04 Why is Smell Connected to Memory So Strongly?02:02:14 Do London Cab Drivers Have Larger Hippocampi?02:10:11 The Limits of MRI and CT Scans02:19:24 Will We Ever Be Able to See Consciousness in the Brain?
Transcript
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| 0:59.0 | Matthew Cobb, welcome to the show. |
| 1:02.0 | Great to be here, Alex. |
| 1:03.0 | Thanks for the invitation. |
| 1:05.0 | Tell me, where is fancy bread? |
| 1:08.0 | In the heart or in the head? |
| 1:10.0 | Yeah, so for viewers who don't know, that's from Shakespeare. |
| 1:14.6 | And it's one of the things that I thought was really interesting that in one of these Shakespeare plays, |
| 1:20.6 | there's one of these songs in the middle of it, bits you skip over at school, in which somebody sings, |
| 1:26.6 | tell me where is fancy bread or in the heart or in the |
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