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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
Sets
Goals
Meet
Consciousness
Rest
System
Goal
Doe
Learns

More quotes by David Eagleman

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Our reality depends on what our biology is up to.
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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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.
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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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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 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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Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict.
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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Death... The moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
David Eagleman
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Knowing yourself now requires the understanding that the conscious you occupies only a small room in the mansion of the brain, and that it has little control over the reality constructed for you.
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.
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Nothing is inherently tasty or repulsive - it depends on your needs. Deliciousness is simply an index of usefulness.
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A mere 400 years after our fall from the center of the universe, we have experienced the fall from the center of ourselves.
David Eagleman
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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.
David Eagleman
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What we find is that our brains have colossal things happening in them all the time.
David Eagleman
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We don't really understand most of what's happening in the cosmos. Is there any afterlife? Who knows.
David Eagleman
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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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The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.
David Eagleman