Quotes by Brain Your brain is built of cells called neurons and glia - hundreds of billions of them. Each one of these cells is as complicated as a city. David Eagleman cellscitiesbrain Consciousness is the smallest player in the operations of the brain. David Eagleman consciousnessplayerbrain The conscious mind is not at the center of the action in the brain; instead, it is far out on a distant edge, hearing but whispers of the activity. David Eagleman hearingmindbrain Love was not specified in the design of your brain; it is merely an endearing algorithm that freeloads on the leftover processing cycles. David Eagleman algorithmsdesignbrain Awareness of your surroundings occurs only when sensory inputs violate expectations. When the world is successfully predicted away, awareness is not needed because the brain is doing its job well. David Eagleman expectationsbrainjobs Brains are like representative democracies. They are built of multiple, overlapping experts who weigh in and compete over different choices. David Eagleman democracychoicesbrain Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains. David Eagleman balanceemotionalbrain One of the most impressive features of brains - and especially human brains - is the flexibility to learn almost any kind of task that comes its way. David Eagleman tasksbrainway The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass. David Eagleman down-andbrainwriting 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. David Eagleman choicesmindbrain 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. David Eagleman cuttingbrainworld You gleefully say, "I just thought of something!", when in fact your brain performed an enormous amount of work before your moment of genius struck. When an idea is served up from behind the scenes, your neural circuitry has been working on it for hours or days or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations. But you take credit without further wonderment at the vast, hidden machinery behind the scenes. David Eagleman brainyearsideas As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more problems. David Eagleman technologyproblembrain The brain runs its show incognito. David Eagleman showsbrainrunning As Walt Whitman correctly surmised, we are large and we harbor multitudes within us. And those multitudes are locked in chronic battle. There is an ongoing conversation among the different factions in your brain, each competing to control the single output channel of your behavior. As a result, you can accomplish the strange feats of arguing with yourself, cursing at yourself, and cajoling yourself to do something - feats that modern computers simply do not do. David Eagleman battledifferentbrain If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them. David Eagleman smartsimplebrain 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. David Eagleman cellslightbrain Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict. David Eagleman brainrunningdrama Just give the brain the information and it will figure it out. David Eagleman informationbraingiving 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. David Eagleman perceptionplaybrain«3435363738394041424344»
