Phantoms in the Brain

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2003

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

This year's Reith Lecturer is Vilayanur S Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition. He has lectured widely on art and visual perception of the brain and is Editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia of Human Behaviour. Professor Ramachandran's work has concentrated on investigating phenomena such as phantom limbs, anosognosia and anorexia nervosa.

Professor Ramachandran begins his Reith Lecture series on 'The Emerging Mind' by arguing that scientists need no longer be afraid to ask the big questions about what it means to be human. With empirical evidence, science can now answer ancient philosophical questions about meaning and existence. By studying neurological syndromes that have been largely ignored as curiosities or mere anomalies, we can sometimes acquire novel insights into the functions of the brain. Many of the functions of the brain, he says, are best understood from an evolutionary vantage point.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. This lecture in the series,
0:05.8	The Emerging Mind, given by Villanour S. Ramachandran, was originally broadcast in 2003.
0:13.5	Good evening and welcome to the Royal Institution for the first of the Reith Lectures, 2003.
0:19.4	This year, the lectures are called the Emerging Mind, and they're being given by one of the Reith Lectures 2003. This year the lectures are called the emerging mind and they're being
0:23.4	given by one of the world's leading brain scientists, Villanour Ramachandran. Ramachandran is a man of
0:29.8	great academic distinction but he's also a scientific detective. His exploration of the human brain
0:36.7	has taken him across the frontier of neuroscience
0:39.3	into the worlds of psychology and philosophy. By asking questions about why the human brain works in a
0:46.4	certain way, why it believes some things and not others, why it discriminates between, say,
0:52.2	the humdrum and the artistic, he's begun to tackle fundamental issues.
0:56.9	What do we mean by belief? What is self? What is consciousness?
1:02.2	Ramachandran was born in India where he trained as a doctor. Fascinated by the human mind,
1:07.2	he came to Britain and studied in Cambridge and in Oxford. He then moved to the world's
1:12.4	most important centre for neuroscience in San Diego, California, where today he's director of the
1:18.5	Centre for Brain and Cognition. In this series of five lectures, we'll be discovering how science,
1:24.9	which has helped us to understand the human body, is now in the process of
1:29.3	helping us to unlock the secrets of its mind. We'll learn how it can bring empirical research
1:35.1	to bear on philosophical questions about who we are and what we feel. With us tonight is an
1:42.0	audience of scientists, psychologists, thinkers and writers who will debate the issues raised by our lecturer afterwards.
1:48.7	But first, please welcome our Reith Lecturer for 2003 Professor Villanour Ramachandrum.
1:59.5	The history of mankind in the last 300 years has been punctuated by major upheavals in human thought that we call scientific revolutions,
2:14.0	upheavals that have profoundly influenced the way in which we view ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
	...

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