
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Neurobiologist and lecturer of Physiology at the University of Cambridge Colin Blakemore explores the human need for sleep in his second Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Mechanics of the Mind'.
In this lecture entitled 'Chang Tzu and the Butterfly', Professor Colin Blakemore examines the human need for sleep. The study of human sleep remains the most direct experimental approach to the question of consciousness. Our nightly appointment with death is the most profound loss of awareness that most of us are likely to experience throughout our lives. We shall spend more than 20 years of our lifetime asleep-unconscious, almost oblivious to the demands, the joys and the dangers of the world around us.
The problem of human consciousness has stirred up fierce debate between the reductionists and holists and Professor Blakemore asks the question, why do we sleep?
By BBC Radio 44.8
1616 ratings
Neurobiologist and lecturer of Physiology at the University of Cambridge Colin Blakemore explores the human need for sleep in his second Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Mechanics of the Mind'.
In this lecture entitled 'Chang Tzu and the Butterfly', Professor Colin Blakemore examines the human need for sleep. The study of human sleep remains the most direct experimental approach to the question of consciousness. Our nightly appointment with death is the most profound loss of awareness that most of us are likely to experience throughout our lives. We shall spend more than 20 years of our lifetime asleep-unconscious, almost oblivious to the demands, the joys and the dangers of the world around us.
The problem of human consciousness has stirred up fierce debate between the reductionists and holists and Professor Blakemore asks the question, why do we sleep?

7,913 Listeners

1,086 Listeners

376 Listeners

863 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

159 Listeners

5,576 Listeners

1,808 Listeners

1,729 Listeners

1,018 Listeners

1,952 Listeners

149 Listeners

3,245 Listeners

1,010 Listeners

15,506 Listeners