A long time ago, I thought brain surgery was exquisite — that it represented the highest possible way of using both hand and brain, of combining art and science. I thought that the surgeons — because they handle the brain, the miraculous basis of everything we think and feel — must be tremendously wise and understand the meaning of life.
As I have got older, I have instead come to realise that we have no idea whatsoever as to how physical matter gives rise to consciousness, thought and feeling. I look at the liver spots on the wrinkled skin of my hands, the hands whose use has been the dominant theme of my life, and wonder what my brain would look like on a scan.