Stepping Out of the Shadows

0:00This is Hidden Brain.

0:01I'm Shankar Vedanta.

0:03Imagine you're an architect, but instead of drawing up a plan for a skyscraper or a bridge, you've been asked to design the most sophisticated edifice in the universe, the human brain.

0:18Getting to work at your drafting table, you'd likely prioritize accuracy.

0:24You want this brain to perceive the world exactly as it is, a perfect mirror of reality.

0:32In your blueprint, the good and the bad, the rewarding and the threatening, all would be treated the same.

0:38Every event, every experience would be assigned equal weight, given the same attention and remembered equally.

0:47But as any architect will tell you, there is a vast gulf between a design that works on paper and one that actually survives the elements.

0:56The same is true of our own minds.