Santa Fe Institute – Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain
Patricia Churchland
November 18, 2015
What shapes our personalities? How do we account for near-death
experiences? How do we make decisions? And what happens when we accept that everything we feel and think stems not from an immaterial spirit but from electrical and chemical activity in our brains? Neurophilosopher Churchland grounds the philosophy of mind in the essential ingredients of biology, offering lucid explanations of the neural workings that underlie identity. Churchland explores how the latest research into consciousness, memory and free will can help us reexamine enduring philosophical, ethical, and spiritual questions.
Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American philosopher and author of Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain. Churchland was a 1991 MacArthur Fellow and currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego and at the Salk Institute.
