The Brain with David Eagleman

The Brain With David Eagleman is an epic six hour neurology brain science documentary series with six different episodes focusing on how our brain works.

Guided by neurologist David Eagleman, we’ll experience the inner workings of the brain and get a front-row seat to a spectacular journey into why the mind feels and think the things it does.

Episode 1: What is Reality?

Starting of, episode one explores the beautiful world we all take for granted.

“What is Reality?” begins with the astonishing fact that the world all around us is a convincing illusion conjured up for us by our brains.

In the outside world there is no colour, no sound, no smell. These are all constructions of the brain.

Instead, there is electromagnetic radiation, air compression waves, and aromatic molecules all of which are interpreted by the brain as colour, sound and smell.

Episode 2: What Makes Me?

Episode two, “What Makes Me?”, explores the question of how the brain gives rise to our thoughts, emotions, our memories and personality.

The process of becoming a fully developed human takes a long time, and the brain doesn’t stop forging new connections when we become adults.

As we make new memories, learn new skills, and have life experiences the brain is constantly and dynamically rewiring itself.

Episode 3: Who is in Control?

Episode 3 is a scientific look into the control aspect of the brain. Throughout the episode, we’ll hunt for the answers to the following questions:

Does free will exist?

Are we entirely the products of our genes and our environment?

Does our unconscious mind make most of our decisions?

What does our conscious awareness do, what is it for?

Together with David we’ll take a deeper look at these questions and many more, in a quest to better understand the human brain.

Episode 4: How Do I Decide?

A life of decisions have made us into the people we are today, but how do we decide on matters? Episode 4 dives into this question and journeys through the unseen world of decisions and how they brain decides.

As every other episode in this documentary series, we’ll figure out the outcome of why our brain decides what it does through carefully planned experiments and scientific observation.

Episode 5: Why Do I Need You?

In “Why Do I Need You?” Dr. David Eagleman explores how the human brain relies on other brains to thrive and survive.

Studies show how this neural interdependence begins at birth and continues on until we die.

This connection can be seen through experiments: Brain scans reveal that when we see someone in pain, we feel it too.

Episode 6: Who Will We Be?

The sixth and final episodes explores what’s next for the human brain and our humanity all-together.

Mother nature has evolved a brain that is able to rewire itself according to its environment, which means that as technological advances continue apace, our technology is on a crash course with our biology.

Neuroscientists may discover that what’s important is not what the brain is made of but what it does, and if we can faithfully represent the computations it makes on another non-biological medium, then we may make the move from biological to digital species.