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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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It is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong.
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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Every atom in your body is the same quark in different places at the same moment in time.
David Eagleman
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Just give the brain the information and it will figure it out.
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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Odor carries a great deal of information, including information about a potential mate's age, sex, fertility, identity, emotions, and health.
David Eagleman
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You are part of a complex social network that changes your biology with every interaction, and which your actions can change.
David Eagleman
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Those with Anton's syndrome are not pretending they are not blind they truly believe they are not blind. Their verbal reports, while inaccurate, are not lies. Instead, they are experiencing what they take to be vision, but it is all internally generated.
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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Nothing is inherently tasty or repulsive - it depends on your needs. Deliciousness is simply an index of usefulness.
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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It is the most wondrous thing we have discovered in the universe, and it is us.
David Eagleman
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It is only through us that God lives. When we abandon him, he dies.
David Eagleman
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The majority of human beings live their whole lives unaware that they are only seeing a limited cone of vision at any moment.
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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Vision is more than looking.
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.
David Eagleman
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There are always wonderful mysteries to confront.
David Eagleman
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As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more problems.
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