How would we know if we were living in a simulation? What if you were a butterfly having a dream it was a human? What does any of this have to do with John Lennon, or Renee Descartes, or freezing yourself in a vat of liquid nitrogen? How will we eventually solve the problem that human bodies can’t do space travel? Join Eagleman for a wild ride into the strange possibility of making brains immortal.

How do your billions of tiny brain cells build consciousness as they chatter away with electrical spikes and chemical signals? And why is your laptop, with its sophisticated algorithms and billions of parts, presumably not conscious? Could other large systems like a city become conscious? And what does this have to do with ant hills, blue birds, or your memory of your first kiss? Join Eagleman on a journey into one of the central mysteries of neuroscience: why we have awareness.

Why is there so much polarization, and what does this have to do with neuroscience? Why do people on all sides of the political spectrum feel that if they could shout loudly enough in all caps on Twitter, everyone would come to see they’re right? And what does any of this have to do with literature, genetics, nobleman Lord Gordon, bumperstickers, visualization, or the Iroquois Native Americans? Join as Eagleman draws from distant fields to show why we always feel so certain we know the truth.

When does neuroscience overlap with the legal system? Do we have free will or don't we? Did changes in Charles Whitman's brain have something to do with him becoming a mass shooter? Why was the heir to the Gucci fashion fortune killed by his wife? Join Eagleman on a wild journey to understand what happens when the study of the brain and the law end up in the same courtroom.

Who is doing the choosing when you make a choice? Is there someone in your head but it’s not you? What is a chicken-sexer, and what do they have to do with British plane spotters during WWII? Do we have free will or don’t we? Dive in to discover the ways in which you typically operate with no conscious access to your behaviors.

How far in the past do you live? Why are live television shows not actually live? What does any of this have to do with nuclear bombs, car accidents, plane crashes, volcanos, or the last episode of the Sopranos? Join Eagleman in a mind-bending dive into the neuroscience of time and what it could mean for your last moment.

Can a blind person come to see through her tongue? What would it be like to smell with the nose of a dog? How can we perceive streams of information that are normally invisible to us? And what does any of this have to do with pilots or Westworld or tinnitus or friendly fire or a wristband with vibratory motors? We don't detect most of the action going on in the world around us... and today we'll explore how technology might change that.

Why are some of the best musicians blind? Can blind people learn how to echolocate, like a bat? What do your nightly dreams have to do with the rotation of the planet? Once we find alien life on other planets, should we expect that aliens have dreams at night? Find out why dreaming might be the strange lovechild of brain plasticity.

What do charlatans have to understand about human perception? Why are you so bad at recognizing a real penny among fakes? What did Eagleman have to do with the redesign of the Euro, and why did he campaign to the European Central Bank that all their bills should be blank with a single hologram in the middle? In this episode, explore the crossroads of perception and deception. Brief appearance from special guest Adam Savage. 

We all have goals, and we all face temptations that get in the way. So what's happening in the brain when we act in a manner that isn't in accordance with who we want to be? Computers don’t have these problems, but being human can be tough. In the previous two episodes we exposed the rivaling networks battling it out under the surface. Today we’re going to talk about the gap between what you intend to do and what you actually do when temptation is there.