meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Infinite Monkey Cage

The Mind v the Brain

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.79.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2017

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Mind V The Brain.

It's one of the hardest problems in neuroscience. How do the chemical processes and electric signals produced by our brains result in the complex and varied experiences and sense of self that we might describe as our mind? Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Katy Brand, and neuroscientists Professor Uta Frith and Professor Sophie Scott to ask whether the mind is simply a product of the biology of our brain, or is there more to it than that? Can you have a brain without a mind, and is the mind simply an unexpected consequence, an emergent property, of our highly evolved and sophisticated brain. They'll also be tackling the question of free will, and whether we really have any, and if you could in theory simulate a fully working brain, with all its signals and complexity, would a mind naturally emerge?

Producer: Alexandra Feachem.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:02.0

Hello, I'm Robin Itz.

0:03.6

And I'm Brian Cox, and this is the Infinite Monkey Age.

0:06.0

This week, we are wondering,

0:08.0

are you really in charge of you?

0:11.0

As the great theatrical innovator and auto-died at Ken Campbell

0:14.0

said, you is just one of the things your brain does.

0:17.6

Most of the time, your brain doesn't even bother

0:20.0

to tell your mind why it's doing what it's doing.

0:22.0

Every single day, your brain is stopping you doing things

0:25.0

that you didn't know you were ever going to do.

0:27.0

You will have had a moment today where your brain is going,

0:29.0

no, not here, not in this shopping centre.

0:32.0

Did you do it? No, he didn't.

0:33.0

She'll be telling. No.

0:39.0

Yeah, you weren't expecting that.

0:41.0

No, I was just thinking your Ken Campbell was more like Ken Livingston.

0:43.0

That's what Ken Campbell's, Ken Campbell's,

0:45.0

a wonderful book, big bushy eyebrows, love of Robert Antowelson.

0:48.0

Do get on with it.

0:49.0

An increasing number of experiments seem to demonstrate that

0:52.0

our brain gets on with doing things that our conscious mind just takes.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.