People often ask how I got interested in the brain; my rethorical answer is: 'How can anyone NOT be interested in it?' Everything you call 'human nature' and consciousness arises from it.
General Systems Theory... possibly the model of the world as a great organization can help to reinforce the sense of reverence for the living which we have almost lost.
If a man is pictured chopping off a woman's breast, it only gets a R rating, but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman's breast, it gets an X rating. Why is violence more acceptable than tenderness?
Chapter 3 discusses some unsettling research—stick your average person in a brain scanner, and show him a picture of someone of another race for only a tenth of a second. This is too fast for him to be aware of what he saw. But thanks to that anatomical shortcut, the amygdala knows . . . and activates. In contrast, show the picture for a longer time. Again the amygdala activates, but then the cognitive dlPFC does as well, inhibiting the amygdala—the effort to control what is for most people an unpalatable initial response.
Of necessity, the autobiographical self is not just about one individual but about all the others that an individual interacts with. Of necessity, it incorporates the culture in which the interactions took place.
Dixit 
