Our hopes, loves and very existence are just elaborate functions of a complicated mass of grey tissue. Accepting that can be hard, but neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland tells Graham Lawton that what we know should inspire us, not scare us
You compare revelations in neuroscience with the discoveries that the Earth goes around the sun and that the heart is a pump. What do you think these ideas have in common?
They challenge a whole framework of assumptions about the way things are. For Christians, it was very important that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. Similarly, many people believed that the heart was somehow what made us human. And it turned out it was just a pump made of meat.
I think the same is true about realising that when we're conscious, when we make decisions, when we go to sleep, when we get angry, when we're fearful, ...
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