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David Eagleman Biography

David Eagleman (born April 25, 1971) is an American writer and neuroscientist, teaching at Stanford University as an adjunct professor in the department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. He independently serves as the director of the Center for Science and Law. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a council member in the World Economic Forum, and a New York Times bestselling author published in 32 languages. He is the writer and presenter of the international six-hour television series, The Brain with David Eagleman.

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David Eagleman Quotes

None of the individual metal hunks of an airplane have the property of ﬂight, but when they are attached together in the right way, the result takes to the air. A thin metal bar won't do you much good if you're trying to control a jaguar, but several of them in parallel have the property of containment. The concept of emergent properties means that something new can be introduced that is not inherent in any of the parts.

Airplane, Individual, Mean, Parts, Takes, Together

As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more problems.

Brain, Detect, Problem, Problems, Technologies, Technology

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded.

Apparent, Explanation, Lines, Parsimony, Past, Razors

When we're in a human body, we don't care about universal collapse - instead, we care only about a meeting of the eyes, a glimpse of bare flesh, the caressing tones of a loved voice, joy, love, light, the orientation of a house plant, the shade of a paint stroke, the arrangement of hair.

Eye, Voice, Light, Arrangement, Glimpse

All life is no more than a match struck in the dark and blown out again.

Blown, Dark, Life, Life Is, Match, Struck

Death. . . The moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

Names, Lasts, Moments, Sometime, Moment, Spoken

As Carl Jung put it, "In each of us there is another whom we do not know. " As Pink Floyd sang, "There's someone in my head, but it's not me. "

Carl, Floyd, Jung, Knows, Sang

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.

Brain, Connections, Cubic, Mean, Stars

This is what consciousness does: it sets the goals, and the rest of the system learns how to meet them.

Consciousness, Doe, Goal, Goals, Meet, Sets

We are nothing but the product of billions of years of molecules coming together and ratcheting up through natural selection, we are composed only of highways of fluids and chemicals sliding along roadways within billions of dancing cells, trillions of synaptic conversations hum in parallel, this vast egglike fabric of micron-thin circuitry runs algorithms undreamt of in modern science, and these neural programs give rise to our decision making, loves, desires, fears, and aspirations. That understanding would be a numinous experience, better than anything ever proposed in anyone's holy text.

Cells, Molecules, Neural, Running, Understanding, Years

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.

Dog, Two, Space, Unattractive, German

All life will die, all mind will cease, and it will all be as if it had never happened. That, to be honest, is the goal to which evolution is traveling, that is the "benevolent" end of the furious living and furious dying.

Dying, Goal, Honest, Mind, Traveling

When people fall in love, there´s period of up to three years during which the zeal and infatuation ride at a peak. The internal signals in the body and breain are literally a love drug. And then it beginds to decline. From this perspective, we are preprogramed to lose interest in a sexual partner after the time required to raise a child has passed - which is, on average, about 4 years.

Average, Children, Fall, Falling In Love, Perspective

There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing.

Accessing, Brain, Chasm, Chasms, Looming, Mind

In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all - it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientiﬁc problem is cornered.

Guide, Ideas, Interesting, View, Views

Behavior is the outcome of the battle among internal systems.

Battle, Behavior, Outcome, Outcomes

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.

Brain, Cartography, Cutting, Multiple, Poorly, World

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.

Activity, Biology, People, Reality, Spot, Voice

Nothing is inherently tasty or repulsive - it depends on your needs. Deliciousness is simply an index of usefulness.

Deliciousness, Depends, Needs, Tasty

The conscious mind is not at the center of the action in the brain; instead, it is far out on a distant edge, hearing but whispers of the activity.

Brain, Center, Conscious, Hearing, Mind, Whispers

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