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People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.

Jonah Lehrer

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Jonah Lehrer
Age: 43
Born: 1981
Born: June 25
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Children can't help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.
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I want to give people theories, I want to expose them to scientific stories that force them to re-evaluate the way they use these three pounds of meat inside their head.
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And so we keep on thinking, because the next thought might be the answer.
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Harlow would later write, If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live.
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When we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art.
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It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say.
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It is ironic but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.
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Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill.
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The answer will only arrive after we stop looking for it.
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What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.
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The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.
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Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.
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If you're trying to be more creative, one of the most important things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the information to which you are exposed.
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The vocational approach at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) helps build grit in students. It teaches them how to be single-minded in pursuit of a goal, to sacrifice for the sake of a passion. The teachers demand hard work from their kids because they know, from personal experience, that creative success requires nothing less.
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A lie told well is just as good as the truth.
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While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.
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Creativity is a catchall term for a variety of distinct thought processes.
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Like a work of art, we exceed our materials. Science needs art to frame the mystery, but art needs science so that not everything is a mystery. Neither truth alone is our solution, for our reality exists in plural
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Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new
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In fact, the only way to remain creative over time--to not be undone by our expertise--is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand.
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