Who we think we are is question of brain mechanics

OUR BRAIN operates like a machine and its components can be studied and analysed like the parts of a car. Yet the brain also provides us with a view of who we think we are – our self-image.

This is the theme of a paper being delivered today by Prof Giorgio Innocenti, until recently a neurologist based at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

He and other collaborators are involved in studying how a machine-like brain can still produce fine art and music. He described himself in advance of the session yesterday as being interested in the differences between brain science and the humanities.

“A common theme in western culture is, ‘know yourself; who are you?’,” he said.

The neurological research area closest to being able to answer this was the one involved in studying the complex connectivity within the brain and more broadly brain function, he said.

Our sense of self as human individuals is actually derived by this mechanistic organ. “The image we have of ourselves is an image of the brain.”

Prof Innocenti studies interactions between parts of the brain to establish causal relationships.

“Our brain has a complexity that no machine approaches. It is a machine nothing like anything we have been able to build yet.”

While he supports the notion our brain is a mechanistic device that can be studied by reductive analysis, he strongly rejected the idea that its actions and decisions are wholly dictated by our genes.

We can override the dictates of our genes, and our sense of self is a product of other influences including past experience and our environment. Scientists still do not know where in the brain the ability to remain conscious of our self resides.

“Consciousness is given to us over time. We do not come out of the uterus with consciousness or for that matter self-consciousness. We want to know what we are because we want to know what we can achieve.”