Your identity is a story you tell yourself

Sean Illing talks with neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of The Self Delusion. Berns claims that the idea of a unified, persistent self is a kind of illusion, and that we are better understood as multiple selves at different moments in time, tied together by a story — which is what we call our identity. Sean and Greg also talk about whether the brain is a computer, how perception works, the limits of thinking too much about thinking, and what psychedelics can do to disrupt and change the stories we tell about ourselves.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Gregory Berns (@gberns), author; professor of psychology and distinguished professor of neuroeconomics, Emory University

References: 

• The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent — and Reinvent — Our Identities by Gregory Berns (Basic; 2022)
• More on the "Ship of Theseus" by Noah Levin
• "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" by David Chalmers (Journal of Consciousness Studies 2; 1995)
• More on "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" by Josh Weisberg (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• "The extraordinary therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs, explained" by Sean Illing (Vox; Mar. 8, 2019)

 

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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