You and Me

I have dreamed in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.’ How we process the world around us indeed alters our identity. Our dreams need to be nurtured with the best possible materials

Neuroscience will never be able to throw light on the subjective first-hand experience of feeling what it’s like to be me, or you. Nor, as we saw when considering consciousness in general, is it obvious even what kind of scenario one could expect to address the riddle of how the water of the physical brain and body is transformed into the wine of first-hand experience. But I hope I’ve shown that neuroscience can at least go some way in helping us root this elusive concept of ‘identity’ in the reality of the physical brain and its neuronal mechanisms. By understanding those brain processes and how they might interact with, and be changed by, an unprecedented environment, we scientists may never be able to understand what it actually feels like to be you or me. But we may be able to point to the best possible environments in which that feeling can flourish.

et when dealing with the subject of human identity, I cannot completely remove myself from the equation. I have done my best to assume a scientific attitude but I cannot deny that in this matter I am both the presenter and the subject of the presentation. I am aware that in discussing identity, my own identity also comes into question.