BBC Horizon "The Secret You" how do we know who we are?

[Darren Dirt]

59 minutes of headasplode
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Biv_8xjj8E

With the help of a hammer-wielding scientist, Jennifer Aniston and a general anaesthetic, Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain. So, in order to find out where they come from, Marcus subjects himself to a series of probing experiments.

He learns at what age our self-awareness emerges and whether other species share this trait. Next, he has his mind scrambled by a cutting-edge experiment in anaesthesia. Having survived that ordeal, Marcus is given an out-of-body experience in a bid to locate his true self. And in Hollywood, he learns how celebrities are helping scientists understand the microscopic activities of our brain. Finally, he takes part in a mind-reading experiment that both helps explain and radically alters his understanding of who he is.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nhv56

part of a very long-running series of documentaries, found via comment @ http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/30/science-brain-mind-reading-planning.html


(Deep Thought: "If our brain were so simply constructed so we could understand it, we would be so simple we wouldn't understand it.")

On topic with how the bleep do these noggins work: http://io9.com/5817347/why-we-have-brain-farts-and-whats-being-done-to-stop-them

As much as 30 seconds before test subjects made a mistake, blood flow began to decrease in the regions of the brain associated with maintaining focus and task effort (labeled blue in the figure on the left). At the same time, activity began to increase in regions of the brain that are typically only active during periods of wakeful rest ? regions that are usually kept deactivated during goal-oriented activity (labeled red in the figure on the left).

Interestingly, the abnormal brain activity vanished as soon as a test subject made a mistake; the same way you recognize a mistake resulting from a brain fart at almost the precise moment that it's happening, an error committed by a test subject reset the brain activity in the abnormally behaving regions back to their expected levels.

It really is almost like a build-up of "brain gas", then you're fine after the release! Fascinating organs are fascinating.