Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

Would you torture someone if you were commanded by an authority figure? To what degree are your decisions contextual, and what does this have to do with matching the length of a line, the Iroquois Native Americans, the banality of evil, soldiers posing with dead bodies of their enemies, propaganda, giving shocks to a stranger, or how we should educate our children? Join Eagleman for part 2 of the exploration into brains, dehumanization, and what we can do to improve our possible future.

Why do we so naturally form ingroups and outgroups? And what does that have to do with evolution, monkeys, Greeks, psychopaths, Syndrome E, and propaganda posters? Join Eagleman to learn why our brains are so wired for tribalism, what the consequences are for the world, and how a bit of knowledge goes a long way to making us more immune to propaganda. 

How good is your memory, really? Why do we feel so certain about our memory, even while it is so suspect? Can something told to you after an event change your memory of the event? Why is it so hard to reconstruct a face? Is there a relationship between confidence and accuracy? How is your ability to remember a scene changed if there's a gun pointed at you? Join Eagleman to find out why eyewitness testimony is the most questionable technology we allow in courts.

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.