The idea that I am my brain still guides the efforts of thousands of neuroscientists around the world as we work to connect experience to neural structures, chemical interactions, and genes. Though plausible, I should mention that an elegant hypothesis is no substitute for definitive data. As time has passed, we have learned that everything from the bacteria in our guts to the interactions we had in middle school partly determines our behavior. In fact, it’s beginning to seem that the brain is more like a stage for our life to be acted out upon than like the director behind a curtain calling
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