Although every cell in your body changes such that you are never again the same person physically,

and your neural networks change every hour of your life as you absorb new experiences,

why do you have an illusion of consistency as though you're the

same person you were a week ago or a year ago? What does this have to do with the mythical watercraft

of the Greek demigod Theseus? What is the end of history illusion? And why do you go through so much trouble to make

things comfortable for your future self, even though you don't know that person? And you can be

guaranteed that that person is not going to feel the same way you do now. And if there were an afterlife, what age would your deity dial you to for living out eternity?

Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman.

I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford.

And in these episodes, we dive deeply into our three-pound universe to uncover some of the most

surprising aspects of our lives.

Today, we're going to talk about the notion of having a self and what that has to do with our memory.

And this is a big topic, so we're going to do this in two parts.

Today, we're going to talk about how and why we think of ourselves as lasting through time and what that has to do with our memories. And in next week's episode, Part 2, I'm going to talk with my colleague,

neuroscientist Michael Levin, one of the most energized and original thinkers in the field.

I'm going to talk with him about the way in which memories can be

thought of like little creatures of their own that carry messages in a bottle from one version of

you to the next. So for today, let's start in ancient Greece, where the historian Plutarch wrote

about a tough puzzle that had been floating around in the Greek

philosopher circles, and they were all arguing about it. The puzzle was this. Imagine the ship

of Theseus. Thesius was the hero in Greek mythology who slayed the Minotaur. The idea is that

Theseus and his crew of Athenians

...