Our brains, according to David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, are more like a "neural parliament", with different parts of the brain fighting it out in an attempt to control decisions.
Our sense of reality is constructed by the brain, by many unconscious processes and our sense of who we are is based on a story we tell ourselves, based on distorted and selective past memories.
Brains are locked inside the darkness of our skull and they depend on the information streamed by our senses. The brain then makes patterns and creates a picture of reality. But our response to this reality may not be simple. For example, I might see a delicious cheesecake in front of me and the parts of my brain which register hunger and pleasure might want it. Another part of my brain might be thinking about how I need to lose weight and that the ingredients in the cheesecake might not be good for my health. If I'm feeling particularly hungry or stressed, then the hypothalamus, an area of the brain in charge of the stress response and hunger may well prove to be dominant over the other parts urging me to control myself.
Books To Read
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, is a social psychology book by Jonathan Haidt, in which the author describes human morality as it relates to politics and religion.
