Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.

Lofty questions about the mind are fascinating to ask, philosophers have been asking them for three millennia both in India where I am from and here in the West - but it is only in the brain that we can eventually hope to find the answers.

What the neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.

Think about what artists, novelists and poets have in common: the ability to engage in metaphorical thinking, linking seemingly unrelated ideas, such as, 'It is the east, and Juliet is the Sun.'

The adage that fact is stranger than fiction seems to be especially true for the workings of the brain.

The brain abhors discrepancies.

With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all.