#196 Dr. Alan Jasanoff, The Biological Mind
The Not Old - Better Show
Paul Vogelzang
4.7 • 107 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2018
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Alan Jasanoff, The Biological Mind
Smithsonian Associates, Interview Series
We often consider the brain as the seat of our personal identity and our autonomy. But according to our guest today, Alan Jasanoff, director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, the way we talk about it is often rooted more in mystical concept than scientific fact, which can overlook the physical realities of mental function. The brain is an organ, he emphasizes, not an inorganic machine like a computer. As such, he cautions that our understanding of its workings can't be separated from its surroundings—our human body and the world beyond it.
Drawing on his new book, The Biological Mind: How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to Make Us Who We Are (Basic Books), Jasanoff explores the bodily influences on our brain and psychology, and ways that the environment connects to our behavior. In the process, he discusses a wide range of factors, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the digestive system, the weather to subconscious sights and sounds.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates series. |
| 0:03.6 | I'm your host Paul Vogel Zeng, and this is episode number 196. |
| 0:10.4 | As part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living Inside Science series, |
| 0:15.0 | our guest today on the Not Old Better Show is Alan Jasonoff. |
| 0:19.0 | Alan Jasonoff is director of the MIT Center for Neurological Engineering |
| 0:23.5 | and studies the brain and the way we talk about it, |
| 0:25.9 | which is often rooted more in mystical concepts |
| 0:28.8 | than scientific fact and which can overlook |
| 0:31.8 | the physical realities of mental function. |
| 0:35.0 | I'm going to talk about my book, The Biological Mind, which is about how interactions among brain, body, and environment govern the mind, and how the brain's role in this can't be |
| 0:44.3 | separated from its context. |
| 0:47.5 | That of course is our guest today, Alan Jasonoff, who will be at the Smithsonian Associates |
| 0:51.3 | program presenting the biological mind, the brain, as a response of |
| 0:55.8 | Oregon Tuesday, April 10, 2018. |
| 0:59.7 | Please join me in welcoming to the not old better show via Skype, |
| 1:03.2 | Alan Jasonoff. |
| 1:05.0 | Dr Alan Jazinoff, welcome to the show. |
| 1:07.8 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:09.6 | Tell us briefly what we'll learn about the brain |
| 1:11.8 | at your upcoming Smithsonian Associates presentation. |
| 1:15.0 | So I'm going to try to offer an alternative to what I see as an increasingly popular view of the brain as kind of an encapsulation of our identities and almost a modern |
| 1:25.4 | stand-in for the soul. |
... |
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