Are Your Thoughts Safe?

New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast

Neuroscientists know more about how the brain works than ever before; unlocking the brain's potential could transform our world.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." In turn, that implies that to control someone’s thoughts would create the possibility of controlling their actions, for good or for evil. Until recently, such control was the stuff of science fiction. But, that is changing.

Neuroscientists today know more about how the brain works than ever before; unlocking the brain's potential could transform our world. Achieving what from today's perspective would be superhuman cognition, could open whole new worlds of medicine, science, technology, and even humanity. But it could also be abused, with nightmarish consequences.

Dr. Rafael Yuste works on the forefront of neuroscience, based at Columbia University in New York. His pioneering work has led him to recognize the potential for abuse of rapidly advancing knowledge about how the brain works; as a consequence, he has become a champion for protecting individual neuro-identity and neurorights. In that initiative, he is joined by Jared Genser, a leading international human rights lawyer. Rafael and Jared, both past winners of the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, recently shared ideas in the New Thinking for a New World podcast.