The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

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There is not, within the wide range of philosophical inquiry, a subject more intensely interesting to all who thirst for knowledge, than the precise nature of that important mental superiority which elevates the human being above the brute

—EDWARD BLYTH

FOR THE PAST QUARTER CENTURY I HAVE HAD THE MARVELOUS privilege of being able to work in the emerging field of cognitive neuroscience. This book is a distillation of a large chunk of my life’s work, which has been to unravel—strand by elusive strand—the mysterious connections between brain, mind, and body. In the chapters ahead I recount my investigations of various aspects of our inner mental life that we are naturally curious about. How do we perceive the world? What is the so-called mind-body connection? What determines your sexual identity? What is consciousness? What goes wrong in autism? How can we account for all of those mysterious faculties that are so quintessentially human, such as art, language, metaphor, creativity, self-awareness, and even religious sensibilities? As a scientist I am driven by an intense curiosity to learn how the brain of an ape—an ape!—managed to evolve such a godlike array of mental abilities.

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