David Eagleman on why reality is an illusion
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Literature student turned neuroscientist, Prof David Eagleman, tells Jim Al-Khalili about his research on human perception and the wristband he created that enables deaf people to hear through their skin. Everything we see, taste, smell, touch and hear is created by a set of electro-chemical impulses in the dark recesses of our brain. Our brains look for patterns in these signals and attach meaning to them. So in future perhaps we could learn to ‘feel’ fluctuations in the stock market, see in infra-red or echo-locate like bats? Each brain creates its own unique truth and David believes, there are no real limits to what we humans can perceive. Producer: Anna Buckley
Transcript
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| 0:40.6 | Have a listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:42.6 | Hello. |
| 0:43.6 | Today, with the help of my guest, David Eagleman, I'm going to get inside your head. |
| 0:48.5 | Please be warned, some of what we hope to discuss could mess with your mind. |
| 0:52.8 | For example, everything you see, taste, hear, smell and feel is not real. |
| 0:59.3 | Every image, every flavour, every sound is an illusion, created in the dark recesses |
| 1:04.6 | of our brains. |
| 1:06.2 | Bottom line, the sum total of human experience is nothing more than a set of electrical impulses |
| 1:11.6 | running between our neurons. |
| 1:14.0 | This is not rocket science, of course. |
| 1:15.8 | What else is there in the space between our ears? |
| 1:18.3 | What it does run counter to that feeling we all have, that we experience the world as |
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