The Importance of Guilt

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Dr. Yossi Ben-Ghiat: Guilt, of course, we are in the place where guilt was born. He says electrical activity is associated and causally related to a feeling of guilt for which an explanation he thought could be found. "I find it actually quite comforting that when I have a thought that I don't want to have, that I can think to myself sometimes"

While operating on a 16-year-old girl who suffered from severe seizures, neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried stumbled on the region of the brain that makes us laugh. To neuroscientist Patrick House, Fried's ability to produce laughter surgically raises deep and disconcerting questions about how the brain works. Join Fried, House, and EconTalk's Russ Roberts for a live broadcast from Jerusalem's Shalem College that is a sequel of sorts to House's earlier appearance on EconTalk. House and Fried discuss the mystery of consciousness and try to square the biological bases for emotions with the circle of our humanity.