In this episode, I sit down with Georg Northoff to explore the complex relationship between the brain, consciousness, and the self. We start by questioning the assumption that neuroscience alone can fully explain who we are. Georg points out the limitations of reductionist approaches, showing why studying neurons and brain regions in isolation isn’t enough to answer fundamental questions about experience and identity.

Our conversation moves into the idea of the self not as a static object in the brain, but as something that emerges in relation to the body and the world. Georg explains how consciousness might be better understood through the connections between brain, environment, and time, rather than by searching for a single “location” of self. He draws on philosophy as much as neuroscience, stressing that the most important questions often lie between disciplines rather than within one.

Together, we reflect on what it means to be human when science cannot give a final answer to the question of existence. Is the self reducible to neurons firing in the brain? Or is it something that can only be grasped by looking at how life unfolds in context—through relationships, history, and lived experience? This conversation invites us to rethink not just what consciousness is, but how we go about asking the question in the first place.