Quote

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

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David Eagleman
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: April 25
Author
Neuroscientist
Psychologist
Researcher
University Teacher
Albuquerque
New Mexico
David M Eagleman
David Eagleman
Natural
Rational
Rationality
Everyone
Balance
Rivals
May
Emotional
Selection
Better
Instead
Internals
Human
Needed
Societies
Teaming
Humans
Emotion
Internal
Optimized
Would
Already
Brains
Spock
Like
Brain
Systems
Optimal

More quotes by David Eagleman

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We are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe.
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Just give the brain the information and it will figure it out.
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If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them.
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I'm using the afterlife as a backdrop against which to explore the joys and complexities of being human - it turns out that it's a great lens with which to understand what matters to us.
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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.
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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.
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Love was not specified in the design of your brain it is merely an endearing algorithm that freeloads on the leftover processing cycles.
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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.
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As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more problems.
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Our reality depends on what our biology is up to.
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Everybody knows the power of deadlines - and we all hate them. But their effectiveness is undeniable.
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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.
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The deep secret of the brain is that not only the spinal cord but the entire central nervous system works this way: internally generated activity is modulated by sensory input. In this view, the difference between being awake and being asleep is merely that the data coming in from the eyes anchors the perception.
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Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict.
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Because vision appears so effortless, we are like fish challenged to understand water.
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Modern neuroimaging is like asking an astronaut in the space shuttle to look out the window and judge how America is doing.
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I always bounce my legs when I'm sitting.
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What a life in science really teaches you is the vastness of our ignorance.
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This is what consciousness does: it sets the goals, and the rest of the system learns how to meet them.
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There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
David Eagleman