Luke Martin is joined by Dr Sharon Dirckx, Cambridge-trained brain-imaging scientist and some time Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics speaker, for a wide-ranging conversation on the mind, meaning and what makes us human. Sharon reflects on her journey from biochemistry into fMRI research, including work on addiction, and explains why consciousness remains a “hard problem” for purely material accounts of the mind. They explore the language of “soul”, what Christians do (and don’t) mean by it, and why near-death experiences raise provocative questions about whether we are more than our brains. Sharon, author of Am I Just My Brain? also weighs the cultural shift away from hard reductionism, engages the promise and limits of AI, and argues for a wiser, more disciplined partnership with technology. Finally, the conversation turns to natural suffering and Sharon’s book Broken Planet, offering a grounded Christian framework for pain, hope and healing.

For Sharon Dirckx: https://www.dirckx.org
For Luke Martin: follow on X https://x.com/luke_s_martin

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Released on 24 Feb 2026