David Eagleman Quotes - Page 5

I know one lab that studies nicotine receptors and all the scientists are smokers, and another lab that studies impulse control and they're all overweight.

It is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong.

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded.

The brain internally simulates what will happen if you were to perform some action under specific conditions. Internal models not only play a role in motor acts (such as catching or dodging) but also underlie conscious perception.

Each cell sends electrical pulses to other cells, up to hundreds of times per second. If you represented each of these trillions and trillions of pulses in your brain by a single photon of light, the combined output would be blinding.

Because vision appears so effortless, we are like fish challenged to understand water.

Even while it's true that we are tied to our molecules and proteins and neurons - as strokes and hormones and drugs and microorganisms indisputably tell us - it does not logically follow that humans are best described only as pieces and parts.

Modern neuroimaging is like asking an astronaut in the space shuttle to look out the window and judge how America is doing.

We are made up of an entire parliament of pieces and parts and subsystems. Beyond a collection of local expert systems, we are collections of overlapping, ceaselessly reinvented mechanism, a group of competing factions. The conscious mind fabricates stories to explain the sometimes inexplicable dynamics of the subsystem inside brain. It can be disquieting to consider the extent to which all of our actions are driven by hardwired systems doing what they do best while we overlay stories about choices.

In our current understanding of science, we can't find the physical gap in which to slip free will - the uncaused causer - because there seems to be no part of the machinery that does not follow in a causal relationship from the other parts.

The continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography.

In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all - it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientific problem is cornered.

As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more problems.

Those with Anton's syndrome are not pretending they are not blind; they truly believe they are not blind. Their verbal reports, while inaccurate, are not lies. Instead, they are experiencing what they take to be vision, but it is all internally generated.

If you have certain problems with your brain but are raised in a good home, you might turn out okay. If your brain is fine and your home is terrible, you might still turn out fine. But if you have mild brain damage and end up with a bad home life, you're tossing the dice for a very unlucky synergy.

Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict.

Odor carries a great deal of information, including information about a potential mate's age, sex, fertility, identity, emotions, and health.

None of the individual metal hunks of an airplane have the property of flight, but when they are attached together in the right way, the result takes to the air. A thin metal bar won't do you much good if you're trying to control a jaguar, but several of them in parallel have the property of containment. The concept of emergent properties means that something new can be introduced that is not inherent in any of the parts.

To a space alien or a German Shepherd dog, two humans would be indistinguishable, just as attractive and unattractive space aliens and German Shepherd dogs are difficult for you to tell apart.

Interestingly, schizophrenics can tickle themselves because of a problem with their timing that does not allow their motor actions and resulting sensations to be correctly sequenced.

If you ever feel lazy or dull, take heart: you're the busiest, brightest thing on the planet.

If you measure someone's brain and see very little activity during a task, it does not necessarily indicate that they're not trying - it more likely signifies that they have worked hard in the past to burn the programs into the circuitry. Consciousness is called in during the first phase of learning and is excluded from the game playing after it is deep in the system.

When the brain activity is kindled in the right spot, people hear voices. If a physician prescribes an anti-epileptic medication, the seizures go away and the voices disappear. Our reality depends on what our biology is up to.

People wouldn't even go into science unless there was something much bigger to be discovered, something that is transcendent.

All creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought.