Tue, Jan 12, 2010
In the second program, Alan Alda joins researchers studying our fellow simians - mainly chimpanzees, our closest living relatives - to discover both what we share with them and what new skills humans evolved since we went our separate ways. By watching - and participating in - experiments comparing chimps with children, he learns that human uniqueness lies in our ability to reason about things we can't observe, especially the content of others' minds, and to employ this skill in the collaborative enterprise we call civilization.
Tue, Jan 19, 2010
In the third program, viewers literally peer into Alda's head with a variety of high-tech imaging techniques, looking for his human spark. The unique circuitry that provides us with our most prized ability, language, is closely tied to another unique human skill, our ability to make and use complex tools. In his own brain, Alda finds the site of his ability to figure out what others are thinking. And in perhaps the biggest surprise, he discovers that the essential human spark, our ability to build alternative worlds in our heads - to imagine - lies in a brain region closely related to that used when thinking about others' minds - and that fires most fiercely when we are doing nothing at all.