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David Eagleman

David Eagleman Quotes

Neuroscientist

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Famous David Eagleman Quotes

“As Walt Whitman correctly surmised, we are large and we harbor multitudes within us. And those multitudes are locked in chronic battle. There is an ongoing conversation among the different factions in your brain, each competing to control the single output channel of your behavior. As a result, you can accomplish the strange feats of arguing with yourself, cursing at yourself, and cajoling yourself to do something - feats that modern computers simply do not do.”

DifferentResultsBrainModernStrangeBattleConversationBehaviorComputerAccomplishArguingLockedMultitudesCompetingOngoingHarborsFeatsFactionsOutputWaltCursing
Author:David Eagleman
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“The deep secret of the brain is that not only the spinal cord but the entire central nervous system works this way: internally generated activity is modulated by sensory input. In this view, the difference between being awake and being asleep is merely that the data coming in from the eyes anchors the perception.”

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Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“We are made up of an entire parliament of pieces and parts and subsystems. Beyond a collection of local expert systems, we are collections of overlapping, ceaselessly reinvented mechanism, a group of competing factions. The conscious mind fabricates stories to explain the sometimes inexplicable dynamics of the subsystem inside brain. It can be disquieting to consider the extent to which all of our actions are driven by hardwired systems doing what they do best while we overlay stories about choices.”

MindMadeSometimesStoriesActionChoicesBrainPiecesGroupsConsciousDrivenLocalsExpertsCollectionsMechanismCompetingParliamentOur ActionsDynamicsFactionsInexplicableConscious MindOverlappingFabricate
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“This is the hallmark of a robust biological system: political parties can perish in a tragic accident and the society will still run, sometimes with little more than a hiccup to the system. It may be that for every strange clinical case in which brain damage leads to a bizarre change in behavior or perception, there are hundreds of cases in which parts of the brain are damaged with no detectable clinical sign.”

MayLittlesStillsSometimesRunningPoliticalPartyBrainCasesStrangeBehaviorPerceptionAccidentsDamageTragicBizarrePolitical PartiesRobustHallmarkClinicalsHiccupsTragic Accidents
Author:David Eagleman
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“You gleefully say, "I just thought of something!", when in fact your brain performed an enormous amount of work before your moment of genius struck. When an idea is served up from behind the scenes, your neural circuitry has been working on it for hours or days or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations. But you take credit without further wonderment at the vast, hidden machinery behind the scenes.”

TryingYearsHas BeensIdeasMomentsFactsHoursBehindsBrainInformationAmountGeniusSceneCreditEnormousCombinationMachineryYour MomBehind The Scenes
Author:David Eagleman
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“When one part of the brain makes a choice, other parts can quickly invent a story to explain why. If you show the command "Walk" to the right hemisphere (the one without language), the patient will get up and start walking. If you stop him and ask why he's leaving, his left hemisphere, cooking up an answer, will say something like "I was going to get a drink of water."”

IfsStoriesShowsChoicesAsksLeftLanguageWaterAnswersWalksBrainWalkingDrinkCookingPatientLeavingCommandGet UpHemisphere
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“The left hemisphere acts as an "interpreter," watching the actions and behaviors of the body and assigning a coherent narrative to these events. And the left hemisphere works this way even in normal, intact brains. Hidden programs drive actions, and the left hemisphere makes justifications. This idea of retrospective storytelling suggests that we come to know our own attitudes and emotions, at least partially, by inferring them from observations of our own behavior.”

KnowsWayIdeasBodyActionLeftEmotionBrainAttitudeEventsBehaviorNormalProgramStorytellingObservationNarrativeJustificationInterpreterHemisphereRetrospective
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“It turns out that dopamine is a chemical on double duty in the brain. Along with its role in motor commands, it also serves as the main messenger in the reward systems, guiding a person toward food, drink, mates, and all things useful for survival. Because of its role in the reward system, imbalances in dopamine can trigger gambling, overeating, and drug addiction - behaviors that result from a reward system gone awry.”

PersonsTurnsResultsBrainRolesGoneDutyDrinkDrugBehaviorSurvivalAll ThingsRewardsAddictionCommandGamblingChemicalsMatesTriggersMotorMessengersDrug AddictionDrug AddictImbalanceDopamineOvereating
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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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.”

PeopleHumansSidesViewsBrainStudyHuman NatureAimGenuineIntuitiveIncompleteDecorationCover UpsEvasion
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“In the traditionally taught view of perception, data from the sensorium pours into the brain, works its way up the sensory hierarchy, and makes itself seen, heard, smelled, tasted, felt - "perceived." But a closer examination of the data suggests this is incorrect. The brain is properly thought of as a mostly closed system that runs on its own internally generated activity.”

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Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“The brain "fills in" the missing information from the blind spot. Notice what you see in the location of the dot when it's in your blind spot. When the dot disappears, you do not perceive a hole of whiteness or blackness in its place; instead your brain invents a patch of the background pattern. Your brain, with no information from that particular spot in visual space, fills in with the patterns around it. You're not perceiving what's out there. You're perceiving whatever your brain tells you.”

SpaceBrainMissingInformationParticularBlindPatternsDisappearBackgroundsHolesSpotsPerceiveVisualsLocationPatchesDotsBlacknessWhitenessBlind Spots
Author:David Eagleman
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“Reductionism is not the right viewpoint for everything, and it certainly won't explain the relationship between the brain and the mind. This is because of a feature known as emergence. When you put together large numbers of pieces and parts, the whole can become something greater than the sum.”

MindWholeTogetherNumbersBrainKnownGreaterPiecesFeaturesViewpointsLarge NumbersEmergenceReductionism
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“When a male vole repeatedly mates with a female, a hormone called vasopressin is released in his brain. The vasopressin binds to receptors in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, and the binding mediates a pleasurable feeling that becomes associated with that female. This locks in the monogamy, which is known as pair-bonding. If you block this hormone, the pair-bonding goes away.”

IfsFeelingsBrainKnownFemaleMalesBlockPairsMatesLocksHormonesBindingBondingMonogamyNucleus
Author:David Eagleman
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“If you cannot always elicit a straight answer from the unconscious brain, how can you access its knowledge? Sometimes the trick is merely to probe what your gut is telling you. So the next time a friend laments that she cannot decide between two options, tell her the easiest way to solve her problem: flip a coin. She should specify which option belongs to heads and which to tails, and then let the coin fly. The important part is to assess her gut feeling after the coin lands. If she feels a subtle sense of relief at being "told" what to do by the coin, that's the right choice for her.”

IfsWayFeelsShouldTwoImportantSometimesFeelingsProblemChoicesNextAnswersBrainLandSolveAccessTricksUnconsciousReliefGutsSubtleTailsNext TimeCoinsFlipLamentRight ChoicesGut FeelingsTwo Options
Author:David Eagleman
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“If you measure someone's brain and see very little activity during a task, it does not necessarily indicate that they're not trying - it more likely signifies that they have worked hard in the past to burn the programs into the circuitry. Consciousness is called in during the first phase of learning and is excluded from the game playing after it is deep in the system.”

IfsTryingFirstsLittlesDoeHardPastGamesBrainConsciousnessActivityProgramTasksPhasesExcluded
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains.”

IfsHumansMayNaturalEmotionBrainEmotionalNeededBalanceRationalInternalsRationalitySelectionBetter OffRivalsNatural SelectionHuman BrainOptimalMr SpockTeaming Up
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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