If you think you can fight love, think again. In his latest episode of Better Than Yesterday, TV Host and Podcaster Osher Günsberg talks to Professor George Paxinos about why you can’t fight love, the power of the brain, his novel A River Divided and free will.
So you think you can choose whom to love? Not if your brain has anything to do with it.
The presenter of the Bachelor and Bachelorette, Osher Günsberg, who hosts the wildly popular podcast Better than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg, sat down with one of the world’s leading neuroscientists and mapper of the human brain Professor George Paxinos.
The UNSW Professor, who studied at Berkeley, McGill and Yale, has discovered more brain areas than anyone in history and has published some of the most referenced scientific books of all time. He delivered a sobering bombshell to all those looking to select their perfect love.
Professor George told Osher when it comes to love, we have no free will. “In love, you might have heard of people saying ‘I want to get rid of my love of this person, but I can’t! Am I correct? Have you ever had that?”
“Oh yeah,” Osher said. “I can relate. I have been in a relationship with someone who was completely inappropriate for me. It wasn’t right. And it was very difficult to change my feelings for this person.”
“Exactly!” said Professor George. “If you had free will over the domain of love, then you should be able to just transfer your emotions to someone who’s more appropriate for you.”
“The puppeteer is our brain. The puppets are our minds,” riffed the 78-year-old Professor with Osher. “We are free only to the extent that we love our strings.. quoting (philosopher) Sam Harris.”
Professor George has included the themes of free will, love, science, ethics and the climate crisis in his new eco-fiction novel A River Divided. It explores the scenario where a geneticist clones Christ, twice. The twin boys grow up in entirely different environments, one in middle class Sydney and the other in the slums of Buenos Aires.
“We are all products of our genes and our environments,” the Professor told Osher. “So, what would someone with the genetic endowment of Christ do if they were present today? Would he join Wall Street OR street protest?”
Better Than Yesterday Podcast
“From Oscar winners to Olympic Gold Medal winners, from highly successful entrepreneurs to high-powered politicians, each conversation focuses on how that guest has managed to make today a little bit Better Than Yesterday, in the hope that you can take some of those lessons and apply them to your own life. Don’t you want today to be a little better?”
Listen here to Osher’s fascinating conversation with Professor George Paxinos:
Listen on Apple here.
Listen on Acast here.
Check out Osher’s website here.
Professor George Paxinos’ A River Divided
A River Divided explores one of our most fundamental social questions around who wins in the battle of nature vs nurture, as it takes the reader on a mysterious journey across the world to the Amazon Rainforest.
To buy A River Divided click here.
To listen to A River Divided and buy the new audio version of the book click here.
