# Unlocking the mysteries of our brain | David Eagleman

Segment00:00:00 – 00:05:00

Full episode transcript, trimmed to training segment.

==================================================

[0000:00] Chris Anderson: Hello there. This is Chris Anderson, welcoming you to The TED Interview. Now then, uh, this is a, a special episode that was recorded live at the TED Conference featuring one of the most amazing minds there is out there: David Eagleman. I mean, I introduce him from the TED stage, so I'm not gonna tell you all about him here, but, um, the way that he thinks about the human brain is incredible.

And, um, let's face it, we all care about our brains. So I think, I think you're in for an absolute treat of a conversation. Um, I talked to him for a while. The audience has extraordinary questions. Now, as you'll hear, this is the last official interview I'll be doing on The TED Interview, and that's because there is an amazing new host taking over.I'm so excited about him. I know you will be too. He will be kicking off a new series starting in, in June. Um, he's actually in the audience at TED, and um, I make reference to him. But meanwhile, stay with us for an incredible conversation with David Eagleman.

[BREAK]

Okay. Okay. Okay. Hello. Hello everyone. This theater is so intimate and beautiful and it's lovely to see your faces. Uh, we are in for an absolute treat today, not just because you are, you are witnessing what will probably be the last, uh, TED interview done by me for a while. I'm, I am with great, uh, excitement handing over this role to someone who I'm a huge fan of: the author Steve Johnson. Steven Johnson, who's spoken at TED many times. He has a mind absolutely bursting with a curiosity. Actually, are you here, Steve, by any chance? Ah, here's Steve. Right here.

Um, so, um, we're soulmates, so this is, this is good. But I, I'm so excited to get to do this last one because we're really gonna get a chance to connect with one of the world's most amazing minds. Um, I mean, he's a Stanford neuroscientist, but he has somehow found the language and the ideas to make the brain and its possibilities come alive in a way that I don't think anyone else has been able to do.

I mean, as you know, he's written lots of books. There was a book several years ago called Some, which was a series of short stories, just about possibility. Um, in addition to being a neuroscientist, he's a possibilian and we'll, we'll talk about what that is later on in the interview. But then there's a book called Live Wired, which is, uh, really, it's, it's, it's, it's a revolutionary way of thinking about the brain.

That is, that is incredibly exciting and, and again, leads to many revelatory possibilities. He's got a PBS series called The Brain, a multipart. Um, he spoke at TED in 2015, a totally memorable talk. And, um, so anyway, we're gonna go on an amazing journey together. Please welcome David Eagleman.

[0003:21] David Eagleman: Great, thanks. such a pleasure, Chris. Thanks for having me.

[0003:25] Chris Anderson: So, the task I am setting you is to help us understand the miracle that happens in the brain. This couple pounds of squishy stuff locked in a skull that despite all that, somehow manages to create every single thing that we actually care about. It's a miracle, right?

[0003:45] David Eagleman: Yeah. I would say.

[0003:48] Chris Anderson: So, in your talk in 2015, you spoke about this model of the brain that you called Mr. Potato Head, and I'd like you to recap that model. ‘Cause I think it really paves the way nicely for what's to come.

[0004:00] David Eagleman: Yeah. Something I've always been interested in is the brain is locked in silence and darkness inside the skull and all that you have in there are spikes. These electric, you know, electrical spikes that release chemicals. And if I were to show you a part of the brain with some magical microscope where you could see all these spikes, and I said, “Hey Chris, is that the visual part of the brain or auditory or touch?” You couldn't tell me. I couldn't tell you ‘cause it's all the same.

It looks the same everywhere in the brain. And so the part that got me interested is, yeah, how does the system create the colors and the, the light and the smells and the touch and all that stuff, um, given that it's really just zeros and ones going on in there? So anyway, I got interested in the senses and the, the model I ended up proposing is this potato head model, which is that it doesn't matter how you get information in there, the brain will figure out what to do with it.

‘Cause that's what's really good at doing, essentially it's a all-purpose compute device, and whatever spikes it's getting, it says, “Oh, that's relevant for my behavior. I can do something with that.” And so the potato head model is simply that you can switch the things around and maybe even build completely new senses and plug 'em in anywhere and it doesn't matter.