Something from Nothing

The Sunday before last I happened to catch a rerun episode of Radiolab entitled "Who Am I?" It turned out to be the first episode of the first season of Radiolab, so the information in the program might be slightly outdated. Nevertheless I was utterly blow away by two concepts put forth in the program: 

1. The human brain is uniquely (?) capable of conjuring up images that do not exist in reality, like a red canary with purple stripes, through some process of dismantling and assembling realistic images in memory. 

2. The sense of an integrated, coherent self is such an abstract mental creation. It's not based on anything concrete or real. 

Both points blew my mind and continue to do so all these days later. I am still chewing on them.