Your Brain Lies to You (And That's a Good Thing): Anil Seth on Consciousness
About this episode
Anil Seth discusses the nature of consciousness as a controlled hallucination constructed by the brain.
What if everything you see, hear, and feel isn't real? What if it's just your brain's best prediction of what's real? Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch sat down with neuroscientist and consciousness researcher Anil Seth to explore the profound question of: What is consciousness? Seth's answer might surprise (and even unsettle) you. Consciousness isn't a window onto reality. It's a controlled hallucination constructed by your brain to make sense of a world it can never directly access. These questions of consciousness illuminate central ideas of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and Director of the Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness and more than 200 scientific papers. Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Christof Koch is Chief…
People in this episode
Hosts: Dr. Heather Berlin, Dr. Christof Koch
Guest: Anil Seth
Topics covered
- consciousness
- neuroscience
- perception
- hallucination
- mental health
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Sussex, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Allen Institute for Brain Science
Books & works: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
More episodes of Science of Perception Box
- The Hidden Rules Holding Society Together: Steven Pinker on Common Knowledge
- Overcoming the Victim Mindset with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman
- Your Body’s Operating Manual: Andrew Huberman on the Mind-Body Connection
- Stop Trying to Fix People: Mel Robbins on the Power of Letting Go
- How Much Risk Should Kids Take?
- Science of Perception Box is Back with a New Season
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