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Identities and the self

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Counterpoint and Prospect magazine talk neuroscience, public policy, and culture

Counterpoint has 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.

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The problem of other minds

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.

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Counterpoint Podcast Series

Counterpoint Podcast Series

The Counterpoint podcast series brings leading thinkers and practitioners from a wide array of fields to discuss some of the most important issues in cultural relations today. An archive of all our podcasts and interviews can be found here.

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What's On Your Mind?

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An interview with Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton speaks to Counterpoint about the connection between cultural context and individual identity. How do people define themselves in different societies? In an increasingly globalised world, do we feel the same need to belong? And why is elite culture so adverse to the idea of individual self-improvement?

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Understanding Ourselves, Understanding Cultures: The value of Psychoanalysis

Cultural differences in individual identity can underpin the divides we cannot bridge. A psychoanalytic awareness lets us acknowledge the importance of these differences, and provides some of the tools we need to understand them.

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Slavoj Zizek – Apocalyptic Times

Slavoj Zizek discusses the impact of technology on identity.

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Individual identity and cultural relativism; an interview with Henrietta Moore

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?

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Identity at The Wellcome Collection

An excellent exhibition on identity

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How far should we go in the name of Social Neuroscience?

Are we in the midst of a shift in the way that we understand and conceptualise the self? In the face of a growing body of evidence from social neuroscience, we ask, is it time to re-imagine the rational individualistic self? Do we overestimate the power of the conscious self and underestimate the potential for a pro-social self? Has a common-sense view of self-hood distorted our view of ourselves already for too long?

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