Brainwaves: Why is the brain such a mystery?
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The brain is the organ that makes us who we are. It’s our conduit between reality and thought. But somehow, we’ve only scratched the surface in understanding how the brain actually works.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. A recent episode asks, are boardrooms ready for the new geopolitical reality? Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode. |
| 0:18.1 | WBUR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 0:26.6 | This is on point. I'm Megyn Chakra-Bardi. |
| 0:29.6 | Today, we're kicking off a week-long look at the human brain, and we're calling it brainwaves. |
| 0:36.9 | Okay, I know you see what we did there. |
| 0:39.3 | Ha ha. |
| 0:39.9 | But it's actually a perfect title. |
| 0:42.3 | Because every time we try to describe the human brain, I have to say it is hard not to use loose ephemeral language about it like waves. |
| 0:50.8 | Because brain waves are the best we can do to put the fact of human thought into words. |
| 0:55.7 | And it's unsatisfactory to be sure because, I mean, what is human thought really? |
| 1:01.6 | How does it work? |
| 1:02.9 | We all know something happens when we're thinking, but we don't know exactly how it happens, |
| 1:07.5 | but that something really changes when we're thinking. |
| 1:10.3 | Something flows. |
| 1:11.7 | So that's why we call it a brainwave. |
| 1:15.3 | What I'm saying is that it's hard not to drift into the mystical when talking about this still most |
| 1:20.7 | mysterious of human organs. |
| 1:23.1 | This intricate and marvelous network of neurons has been called an enchanted loom |
| 1:31.2 | where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern. |
| 1:37.8 | The inimitable Carl Sagan in a 1980 episode of Cosmos exploring different parts of the brain and what they do. |
| 1:44.7 | And by the way, I absolutely love that phrase, an enchanted loom. |
| 1:49.7 | So today, in episode one of brain waves, why is the brain so hard to research? |
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