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David Eagleman is a renowned neuroscientist, podcast host, and the author of many bestselling books about consciousness and the brain—along with more than 120 academic publications. Besides his perch as a neuroscientist at Stanford University, David is the co-founder of two venture-backed companies, including Neosensory, which is a pioneering wrist device that enables the deaf to hear. Yep, that’s right.
David is fascinating, and hopefully this conversation lives up to his capacity: We discuss the malleability of the brain to adjust to its inputs, the roots of synesthesia, how those who are born blind and deaf can now use touch to see and hear, and why we dream. Ultimately, we explore just how it happens that a brain trapped in a dark vault can create the vibrancy of our existence.
David is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, and serves on several boards, including the American Brain Foundation and the The Long Now Foundation. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and the winner of Claude Shannon Luminary Award from Bell Labs and the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication.
What’s cooler? He has served as the scientific advisor to several television shows (including “Westworld” and “Perception”). Ironically—considering we both host podcasts and David is a neuroscientist—we had some technical difficulties during our conversation, but the hope is that this is not perceptible to you!
MORE FROM DAVID EAGLEMAN:
David’s Podcast: “Inner Cosmos”
David’s Website
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN: You're fascinating to me, and we're going to talk about maybe spiky intelligence or the way that the brain adapts itself to its inputs, right? So I was reading Livewired, so that's what I've been steeping my own brain in and in it you write about, for example, musicians and the way that they get the omega or the double omega based on maybe not all musicians, but based on whether they're doing a one or two hand piano versus a violin. When you think about your own brain and so I'm a writer, you're a writer, I have some other skills and talents, but I would say that's where like the spike of my intelligence lives. I'm not a scientist. I'm sorry to tell you, David, I'm sure you're devastated to hear that. But why are you so non spiky and yet so excellent in so many fears?