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The visual system of the brain has the organization, computational profile, and architecture it has in order to facilitate the organism's thriving at the four Fs: feeding fleeing, fighting, and reproduction.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
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Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: August 10
Academic
Neurologist
Pedagogue
Psychologist
Scientist
Writer
Rykove
V. S. Ramachandran
V S Ramachandran
System
Reproduction
Brain
Profile
Four
Organisms
Fighting
Feeding
Computational
Order
Visuals
Thriving
Visual
Fleeing
Architecture
Facilitate
Organization
Organism
More quotes by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
What the neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Curiosity illuminates the correct path to anything in life. If you're not curious, that's when your brain is starting to die.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and Internet, you're actually quite literally connected by your neurons.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The boundary between neurology and psychiatry is becoming increasingly blurred, and its only a matter of time before psychiatry becomes just another branch of neurology.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
People often ask how I got interested in the brain my rhetorical answer is: 'How can anyone NOT be interested in it?' Everything you call 'human nature' and consciousness arises from it.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Yet as human beings we have to accept-with humility-that the question of ultimate origins will always remain with us, no matter how deeply we understand the brain and the cosmos that it creates.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Your conscious life is an elaborate after-the-fact rationalization of things you really do for other reasons.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The adage that fact is stranger than fiction seems to be especially true for the workings of the brain.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
There are 100 billion neurons in the adult human brain, and each neuron makes something like 1,000 to 10,000 contacts with other neurons in the brain. Based on this, people have calculated that the number of permutations and combinations of brain activity exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Here is a neuron that fires when I reach and grab something, but it also fires when I watch Joe reaching and grabbing something. ... It's as though this neuron is adopting the other person's point of view.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
People think of art and science as being fundamentally opposed to each other, because art is about celebrating individual human creativity, and science is about discovering general principles, not about individual people. But in fact, the two have a lot in common, and the creative spirit is similar in both.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Any ape can reach for a banana, but only humans can reach for the stars.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
A genius is somebody who seemingly just reaches out of nowhere.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Great art allows you to transcend your mortal frame and to reach for the stars. I think great science does the same thing.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The minute you succumb to outside pressure, you cease to be creative.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
One of the first things we teach medical students is to listen to the patient by taking a careful medical history. Ninety percent of the time, you can arrive at an uncannily accurate diagnosis by paying close attention, using physical examination and sophisticated lab test to confirm your hunch (and to increase the bill to the insurance company).
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
