On Humans

We like to box things into neat categories. We like to box ourselves into a ‘Self’, a ‘Me’, an independent ‘Soul’, caged away from the rest of the world by the bags of our skin. When something goes wrong in our mental health, we like to box the issue into neat buckets of mental health disorders and search for an answer from within this individuated cage. On the other hand, we like to think of the ‘Self’ as a solid, unified, and permanent ‘Me’, making any fundamental change to ourselves difficult.

What if this is all a mistake?

Today’s guest is Gregory Berns, a psychiatrist and a professor of neuroscience at Emory University. His most recent book, published today on the 18th of October, is titled 'Self Delusion: The Neuroscience of How We Invent – and Reinvent – Our Identities'. (Order the book from Basic Books or Amazon. )

Ilari and professor Berns discuss topics such as:

• Does Berns agree with Buddha and David Hume about the illusionary nature of self?
• Why would a psychiatrist care about this issue?
• The neuroscience of how fictional stories shape who we are
• Dissociative identity disorder (DID, also known as multiple personality disorder, MPD)
• Can social pressure change what we see?
• Is it problematic to think of mental health problems as neat buckets? Or should we think of them on a continuum?
• Bern’s answer to ‘what is missing from our biological approach to mental health?’
• Why does it feel right to locate the soul in the heart, rather than the brain?
• Internal family systems therapy (IFST)

Work mentioned and other references

• Metaphors We Live By (George Lakoff & Mark Johnson) 
• Bowling Alone (By Robert D. Putnam)
• Bern’s et al. on fiction and the brain
• Bern’s et al. on the neuroscience of conformity
• Paper on 3rd person memory & depression 

Technical terms and names mentioned

• David Hume
• Resting-state fMRI (Wikipedia)
• Dissociative Identity disorder DID (Wikipedia)
• Conformity & Solomon Ash’s classic studies
• DSM (a major diagnostic manual for mental health)
• Internal family system therapy (IFST, in the episode, mistakenly called internal family dynamics therapy)
• Cognitive behavioural therapy

Can biology expand our appreciation of love? What is the relationship between jazz and neuroscience? What does it mean to be in "synch" with someone? 

Ruth Feldman is a professor of neuroscience at Reichman University, Israel, with a joint appointment at the Yale Child Story Centre. A jazz musician before being a neuroscientist, Feldman combines musical ideas of synchrony into her research on the neurobiology of attachment, bonding, and love.

Ilari and professor Feldman discuss topics such as:

• Why study the biology of love
• What happens in the brain when we love
• Brain-to-brain synchrony: How love (and friendship) can synchronize our brains with each other
• Oxytocin with loved ones, strangers, and enemies
• Post-partum depression
• Parental love in gay dads
• Females and males as primary caregivers
• The relationship between brain-to-brain synchrony and oxytocin
• Empathy within and beyond group boundaries with Israeli and Palestinian youth
• Attachment theory, attachment problems, and ways to overcome them

Technical terms mentioned

• Oxytocin
• Brain oscillations (i.e. brain waves)
• EEG (a method to study brain oscillations)
• Neuropeptide
• Kangaroo care (after premature birth)

Names mentioned

• Wallace Stevens (American poet)
• Emmanuel Levinas (French philosopher)
• John Bowlby (founder of the attachment theory)

Other links and reference

• Brain-to-brain synchrony
• Gay dads: original research & TIME Magazine article
• Intervention with depressed moms
  • Intervention with Israeli and Palestinian teenagers
  • Ruth Feldman Lab's website

Is there a tension between biology and philosophy? Why should Homo sapiens care about ethics? What, if anything, does evolution tell us about human nature?

To discuss these topics, Philip Kitcher joins your host, Ilari Mäkelä.

Philip Kitcher is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books, such as Living With Darwin and The Ethical Project.

Ilari and professor Kitcher discuss topics such as:

01.35: Kitcher's theory of morality as a social technology designed to solve problems resulting from the fragility of human altruism. 

20.07: What is Kitcher’s argument against sociobiology / evolutionary psychology? Is it still relevant? Does evolution prove that we are all selfish?

42.43: What is secular humanism? What is the value of religion? What can secular humanists learn from religion?

Names mentioned

• David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes
• Amia Srinivasan (contemporary Oxford philosopher, see her review of Ethical Project in LRB)
• Bertrand Williams (late Cambridge philosopher)
• Stephen Jay Gould (late Harvard palaeontologist)
• Richard Lewontin (late Harvard biologist)
• E. O. Wilson (late Harvard biologist)
• David P. Barash (contemporary evolutionary biologist)
• Richard Alexander (contemporary evolutionary anthropologist)
• John Bowlby (late psychologist and founder of the attachment theory)
• Johanna Haarer (Nazi propagandist)
• Michael Ghiselin (evolutionary biologist, famous for the quote: “scratch an altruist and watch a hypocrite bleed”)
• Dan Dennett (contemporary philosopher and atheist, interviewed by Sean Carroll)
• Immanuel Kant (referenced from his thesis about the primacy of ethics over religion)
• Robert Frost (poet)
• Richard Dawkins (contemporary biologist and atheist)
• Sam Harris (contemporary writer, atheist, and podcaster)
• Christopher Hitchens (late journalist and atheist)

Terms mentioned

• Consequentialism
• Homo querens

Other work cited

• Siberian silver fox -experiment

Other scholars to follow (Kitcher’s recommendation)

• Kwame Anthony Appiah
• Nancy Cartwright
• Martha Nussbaum
• Elizabeth Anderson
• Susan Neiman

Why do we care for others? Why did morality evolve? Is unselfish behaviour possible in a Darwinian world? Patricia Churchland joins to discuss these topics with your host, Ilari Mäkelä.

Author of Conscience: Origins of Moral Intuition, Patricia Churchland is an emerita professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego.

Ilari and Professor Churchland discuss topics such as:

1. Warm-bloodedness and morality
2. Psychological egoism vs unselfish behaviour
3. Neurobiology of care: Oxytocin, cannabinoids, opioids
4. Elements of morality: How much of morality is about care, vs problem-solving, cooperation, and social learning?
5. Churchland’s criticism of Western moral philosophy
6. Neurophilosophy: is studying the brain all that useful?
7. Free will: does studying the brain show that free will does not exist?

Technical terms mentioned:

• Endothermy (i.e. warm-bloodedness)
• Cortex
• Oxytocin, vasopressin
• Endogenous opioids and cannabinoids
• Utilitarian ethics
• Kantian ethics (i.e. deontology)
• Metta meditation
• Vitalism

Names mentioned:

1. Christophe Boesch (chimpanzee adoption)
2. Peggy Mason (helping behaviour in rats)
3. Sue Carter (oxytocin and stress)
4. David Hume & Adam Smith
5. Mencius (early Confucian philosopher) [For Ilari’s article on Mencius, see An Empirical Argument for Mencius' Theory of Human Nature] 
6. The Dalai Lama (H.H. the 14th)
7. Simon Blackburn (contemporary Cambridge philosopher)
8. Dan Bowling (placebo and oxytocin)
9. Olivia Goldhill (review of Conscience for the New York Times)
10. Lidija Haas (review of Conscience for the Harper Magazine)

Other scholars to follow (Churchland’s recommendations)

Topics in this interview

• Frans de Waal
• Owen Flanagan

Philosophy & neuroscience more generally

• Nick Lane (genetics and evolution)
• Ann-Sophie Barwich (neurophilosophy of smell)
• Gregory Berns (soon to appear on the podcast)
• Ned Block (philosophy of cognition)

This is the On Humans Podcast, with your host, Ilari Mäkelä.

The On Humans Podcast will feature in-depth conversations about the science and philosophy of what it means to be human.  Where do we come from?  What are we seeking for?  Why do we love? Why do we destroy? 

Deep-dives with leading academics, we'll explore these and other questions by focusing on disciplines from the science of happiness, to the psychology of love, and from the anthropology of war to the evolution of morality. 

Subscribe. Stay tuned. Take care.