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If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them.

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
Understand
Enough
Brains
Smart
Understood
Wouldn
Brain
Simple

More quotes by David Eagleman

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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
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Who we can be begins with our molecular blueprints - a series of alien codes penned in invisibly small strings of acids - well before we have anything to do with it. We are a product of our inaccessible, microscopic history.
David Eagleman
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After all, across the population there are slight differences in brain function, and sometimes these translate directly into different ways of experiencing the world. And each individual believes his way is reality.
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As Carl Jung put it, In each of us there is another whom we do not know. As Pink Floyd sang, There's someone in my head, but it's not me.
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If choices and decisions derive from hidden mental processes, then free choice is either an illusion or, at minimum, more tightly constrained than previously considered.
David Eagleman
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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.
David Eagleman
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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.
David Eagleman
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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
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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
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All life is no more than a match struck in the dark and blown out again.
David Eagleman
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You are more likely to believe that a statement is true if you have heard it before - whether or not it is actually true.
David Eagleman
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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.
David Eagleman
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One of the most pervasive mistakes is to believe that our visual system gives a faithful representation of what is out there in the same way that a movie camera would.
David Eagleman
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We are not conscious of most things until we ask ourselves questions about them.
David Eagleman
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Neuroscience over the next 50 years is going to introduce things that are mind-blowing.
David Eagleman
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Because vision appears so effortless, we are like fish challenged to understand water.
David Eagleman
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The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.
David Eagleman
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Every atom in your body is the same quark in different places at the same moment in time.
David Eagleman
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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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I always bounce my legs when I'm sitting.
David Eagleman