This chapter explores the progress of neuroscience in understanding the self and consciousness, highlighting the role of the brain and body in shaping aspects of the self and discussing various components like the autobiographical self and sense of body ownership.
Scientists and philosophers have been perplexed by our sense of the self for millennia. Now, by investigating neurological conditions which disrupt the self—such as body identity disorder, schizophrenia, and the doppelganger effect—neuroscience is finding new clues.