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. David Eagleman More Quotes by David Eagleman More Quotes From David Eagleman Keep in mind that every single generation before us has worked under the assumption that they possessed all the major tools for understanding the universe, and they were all wrong, without exception. David Eagleman generations understanding mind Behavior is the outcome of the battle among internal systems. David Eagleman outcomes battle behavior Visual cortex is fundamentally a machine whose job is to generate a model of the world. David Eagleman machines jobs world Just give the brain the information and it will figure it out. David Eagleman information brain giving 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 perception play brain We are not at the center of ourselves, but instead - like the Earth in the Milky Way, and the Milky Way in the universe - far out on a distant edge, hearing little of what is transpiring. David Eagleman hearing littles way Given the billions of neurons, this means there are as many connections in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. David Eagleman stars brain mean Reductionism is not the right viewpoint for everything, and it certainly won't explain the relationship between the brain and the mind. This is because of a feature known as emergence. When you put together large numbers of pieces and parts, the whole can become something greater than the sum. David Eagleman mind brain numbers 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. David Eagleman airplane trying mean This is what consciousness does: it sets the goals, and the rest of the system learns how to meet them. David Eagleman consciousness goal doe Odor carries a great deal of information, including information about a potential mate's age, sex, fertility, identity, emotions, and health. David Eagleman identity age sex If you are a carrier of a particular set of genes, your probability of committing a violent crime goes up by eight hundred and eighty-two percent. David Eagleman eight crime two If you cannot always elicit a straight answer from the unconscious brain, how can you access its knowledge? Sometimes the trick is merely to probe what your gut is telling you. So the next time a friend laments that she cannot decide between two options, tell her the easiest way to solve her problem: flip a coin. She should specify which option belongs to heads and which to tails, and then let the coin fly. The important part is to assess her gut feeling after the coin lands. If she feels a subtle sense of relief at being "told" what to do by the coin, that's the right choice for her. David Eagleman land choices two 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. David Eagleman games brain past The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain. David Eagleman unhealthy secret brain At least 15 percent of human females possess a genetic mutation that gives them an extra (fourth) type of color photoreceptor - and this allows them to discriminate between colors that look identical to the majority of us with a mere three types of color photoreceptors. David Eagleman female color giving The brain "fills in" the missing information from the blind spot. Notice what you see in the location of the dot when it's in your blind spot. When the dot disappears, you do not perceive a hole of whiteness or blackness in its place; instead your brain invents a patch of the background pattern. Your brain, with no information from that particular spot in visual space, fills in with the patterns around it. You're not perceiving what's out there. You're perceiving whatever your brain tells you. David Eagleman blind-spots space missing All life will die, all mind will cease, and it will all be as if it had never happened. That, to be honest, is the goal to which evolution is traveling, that is the "benevolent" end of the furious living and furious dying. David Eagleman dying goal mind All life is no more than a match struck in the dark and blown out again. David Eagleman life-is dark Modern neuroimaging is like asking an astronaut in the space shuttle to look out the window and judge how America is doing. David Eagleman space judging america
