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

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
Like
Effortless
Challenged
Appears
Fish
Fishes
Vision
Water

More quotes by David Eagleman

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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.
David Eagleman
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Vision is more than looking.
David Eagleman
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The brain runs its show incognito.
David Eagleman
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The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.
David Eagleman
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Once you begin deliberating about where your fingers are jumping on the piano keyboard, you can no longer pull off the piece.
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We are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe.
David Eagleman
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Many people prefer a view of human nature that includes a true side and a false side - in other words, humans have a single genuine aim and the rest is decoration, evasion, or cover-up. That's intuitive, but it's incomplete. A study of the brain necessitates a more nuanced view of human nature.
David Eagleman
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Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it.
David Eagleman
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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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Our internal life and external actions are steered by biological coctails to which we have neither immediate access nor direct acquaintance.
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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A typical neuron makes about ten thousand connections to neighboring neurons. 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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We are not conscious of most things until we ask ourselves questions about them.
David Eagleman
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...you are battered and bruised in the collisions between reminiscence and reality.
David Eagleman
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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
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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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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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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.
David Eagleman
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There are always wonderful mysteries to confront.
David Eagleman
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What a life in science really teaches you is the vastness of our ignorance.
David Eagleman