Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

In humans, however, there are mirror neurons that correspond to movements all over the body, and they fire even when there is no goal;40 in fact, the same neurons are active even when we only imagine an action.

The consequences of this tendency to automatically mimic facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person are to converge emotionally with them, known as emotional contagion.

What does it mean that we build our theories about ourselves after the fact? How much of the time are we confabulating, giving a fictitious account of a past event, believing it to be true?

I am suggesting that the brain has all kinds of local consciousness systems, a constellation of them, which are enabling consciousness. Although the feelings of consciousness appear to be unified to you, they are given form by these vastly separate systems. Whichever notion you happened to be conscious of at a particular moment is the one that come

Invention and imitation are ubiquitous in the human world, but are shockingly rare among our animal friends.

men only report sadness with a double affiliation: a close, ingroup member.

It was reported that when Henry Ford was told “Mr. Ford, a man, Charles Lindbergh just flew over the Atlantic Ocean by himself” he replied, “That’s nothing. Tell me when a committee flies over.”

inhibition. It seems that sociocognitive evolution has occurred in the experimental foxes as a correlated by-product of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression.

Their five modules have to do with suffering (it’s good to help and not harm others), reciprocity (from this comes a sense of fairness), hierarchy (respect for elders and those in legitimate authority), coalitionary bonding (loyalty to your group) and purity (praising cleanliness and shunning contamination and carnal behavior).