The Projecting Brain

The brain's most clever trick is not to process the world, but to place you in it.

You are not who you think you are. The adult 'you' corresponds to about 1.3-1.4 kg of protein and fat that lives in a warm, dark bony cave that has no direct contact with the external world and has very little sense of itself. The conscious perception that feels like 'you' is a manufactured product of the brain in its skull - a construction that involves sampling the external world which is then seamlessly projected into the external world to create a 'you'. Every colour, every sound, every sense of "being here" - none of it arrives from outside. It is generated, moment by moment, inside your skull, and then experienced as if it were simply out there. In The Projecting Brain, neuroscientist Professor James Vickers introduces a new theory that conscious experience is the result of the brain projecting itself into the external world. This theory has ramifications for how we interact with technology as well as for maintaining a healthy brain throughout life.

10% of net sales of The Projecting Brain will be donated to research and educational programs of the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre