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This is what consciousness does: it sets the goals, and the rest of the system learns how to meet 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
Goals
Meet
Consciousness
Rest
System
Goal
Doe
Learns
Sets

More quotes by David Eagleman

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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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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.
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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.
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There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing.
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The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.
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Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.
David Eagleman
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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.
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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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.
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I always bounce my legs when I'm sitting.
David Eagleman
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Nothing is inherently tasty or repulsive - it depends on your needs. Deliciousness is simply an index of usefulness.
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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I spent my adult life as a scientist, and science is, essentially, the most successful approach we have to try and understand the vast mysteries around.
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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Because vision appears so effortless, we are like fish challenged to understand water.
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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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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...you are battered and bruised in the collisions between reminiscence and reality.
David Eagleman
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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.
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.
David Eagleman