The Importance of Mental Imagery

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Every time we discover something, we find that the brain or a biological entity has taken advantage of it in some way. I would guess that there are more kinds of ways that there are to be human and conscious than perhaps there are species on this planet. There's variation across the insides of our heads. Language is a terrible tool for describing what's happening on the inside of our minds.

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.