Reith Lectures 2003, The Emerging Mind - Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Synopsis

This year’s Reith lecturer is the neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California (San Diego).
The five lectures study neurological oddities as a way of unravelling the mysteries of consciousness and human nature.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2006

Year of production

2003

Notes

Broadcast on Radio 4 in 5 weekly parts, beginning 2/4/2003

Documentation

Transcripts of the lectures are available on the website, as well as streaming of the lectures themselves

Subjects

Medical sciences; Psychiatry; Psychology

Keywords

art appreciation; brain sciences; mental disorders; neurological disorders; neurology; neurophysiology; neuropsychology; philosophy of science; sensory perception; synaesthesia

Online availability

URI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/

Price

free

Delivery

Streamed

Credits

Contributor

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Sections

Title

Phantoms in the Brain

Synopsis

Neuroscientists have recently begun broadening their areas of research to develop conceptual links across disciplines. This will enable them to ask basic questions about what it means to be human and perhaps find empirical evidence to answer ancient philosophical questions about meaning and being. The lecture looks at three neurological syndromes: Phantom limbs (whereby a patient still senses the presence of an amputated limb), Capgras’ delusion (after head injury a patient starts to claim close relations are imposters) and pain asymbolia (a patient feels the pain but it doesn’t hurt). Rather than the clinical curiosities that they have been seen as in the past, Professor Ramachandran shows how they illuminate fundamental aspects of our minds such as body image, emotions and the evolution of humour.

Duration

45 mins

Title

Synapses and the Self

Synopsis

The lecture examines how the brain’s neurons generate conscious experience and allow us to identify differences in visual qualities or physical sensations, and particularly how visual recognition works. Drawing on his own clinical experience with patients with visual problems Professor Ramachandran shows that the problem of awareness can be tackled empirically. His theories could move the study of consciousness from the philosophical to the practical as he argues that conscious awareness does not develop throughout the entire brain but that certain specialized neural circuits must be activated that fulfill four functional criteria (which he calls the "four laws of qualia") to stimulate awareness.

Duration

45 mins

Title

Artful Brain, The

Synopsis

Author CP Snow famously spoke of "two cultures: art and science." Professor Ramachandran asks if it is possible to bridge these with a ‘science of art’ to show that, despite diverse artistic styles, there are universal aesthetic principals that apply across cultural boundaries. Drawing upon neurological case studies and work from ethology (studies of animal behaviour) Professor Ramachandran presents a new framework for understanding how the brain creates and responds to art. He uses examples mainly from Indian art and Cubism to illustrate these ideas. Artists can produce ‘abstract’ art by producing work that stimulates the 30 visual areas in the human brain that use short cuts or heuristics to perceive the world using certain contrived patterns.

Duration

45 mins

Title

Purple Numbers and Sharp Cheese

Synopsis

Synaesthetes experience a mixing of senses so that seeing particular colours may generate tastes or smells, or particular sounds may produce colours. The phenomenon of synaesthesia was first studied at the end of the 19th century by Francis Galton (1822-1911) but has usually been regarded as an anomaly or even as bogus, perhaps cast aside with other of Galton’s theories. Professor Ramachandran demonstrates experimentally that the phenomenon is a genuine sensory effect and proposes that a neural mechanism in the brain cross activates between brain maps. Such mechanisms may also explain the representation of metaphors and the evolution of language in humans.

Duration

45 mins

Title

Neuroscience - the New Philosophy

Synopsis

Many neurologists think that physical aspects of the brain are actually the cause of some phenomena that have traditionally been seen as mental illnesses; intense mystical and religious experiences are sometimes experienced by patients with TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy), suggesting a link between certain types of neural activity and religious belief. Professor Ramachandran looks at some syndromes which may result from a disconnection between vision and emotion. Sufferers of Capgras’ Delusion are convinced that close relatives are impostors, perhaps recognising them without having the usual emotional reaction. Such disturbances may also underlie Cotard’s syndrome (which makes the patient think they are dead), derealisation (the feeling that "the world doesn’t really exist"), autism and anosognosia (denial of one’s own paralysis).

As neuroscience develops new disciplines including neuroaesthetics, neuroethics, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuroepistemology, and even neurotheology, this broadening of the discipline may transform our understanding of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.

Duration

45 mins

Distributor

Name

BBC Radio 4

Web

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 External site opens in new window