CounterpointStimulating debate with the British Council

Counterpoint collaborated with Prospect magazine to produce a special supplement in the March 2010 issue of Prospect dedicated to investigating how advances in neuroscience are changing how we think about ourselves and our relationships with others. It is increasingly clear that neuroscience is providing radical new interpretations of how we learn to be, to play, to relate, and to learn. At the same time we need to get past the hardwired vs softwired binary to realise that productive future work will come through a combination of neuroscience's research, and cultural study.

The work of Rebacca Saxe, which she describes in this fascinating TED talk, is a good example of how neuroscience is revolutionising how we think about being human and the human social sphere. Saxe is a cognitive neuroscientist who, while still a graduate student, made the breakthrough discovery that: “There is a region in the human brain, in your brains, whose job it is to think about other people’s thoughts.” She now researches the region of the brain that she discovered, at MIT’s Saxelab, exploring how human minds interact.

Henrietta Moore discusses her views on how anthropologists can best understand different cultures. What are the potential benefits and limitations of cultural relativism? And what is the impact of culture and technology on individual identity?