A human brain is three pounds of the most complex material in
the universe. It is the mission control centre that drives the
operation of your life, gathering dispatches through small
portals in the armoured bunker of the skull. This pink, alien
computational material, which has the consistency of jelly and
is composed of miniaturised, self-configuring parts, vastly
outstrips anything we’ve dreamt of building. Using those brains,
humans have done something unique. As far as we know, we’re the
only system on the planet so complex that we’ve thrown ourselves
headlong into the game of deciphering our own programming
language. Imagine that your desktop computer began to control
its own peripheral devices, removed its own cover and pointed
its webcam at its own circuitry. That’s us. What we’ve
discovered by peering into the skull ranks among the most
significant intellectual developments of our species: the
recognition that the innumerable facets of our behaviour,
thoughts and experience are inseparably yoked to a