{"author":"David Eagleman","author_id":"David+Eagleman","total_quotes":33,"quotes":[{"text":"We open our eyes and we think we're seeing the whole world out there. But what has become clear—and really just in the last few centuries—is that when you look at the electro-magnetic spectrum we are seeing less than 1/10 Billionth of the information that's riding on there. So we call that visible light. But everything else passing through our bodies is completely invisible to us.Even though we accept the reality that's presented to us, we're really only seeing a little window of what's happening.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["information","perception","reality"],"id":15102,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"When you arrive in the afterlife, you find that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley sits on a throne. She is cared for and protected by a covey of angels. After some questioning, you find out that God's favorite book is Shelley's Frankenstein. He sits up at night with a worn copy of the book clutched in his mighty hands, alternately reading the book and staring reflectively at the night sky.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["mistakes","monsters","responsibilities"],"id":37094,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"It is only through us that God lives. When we abandon him, he dies.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["existentialism","god","life","religion"],"id":80257,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":".. We are not conscious of most things until we ask ourselves questions about them.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["brain","human","introspective","mind","science"],"id":81280,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"Imagine for a moment that we are nothing but the product of billions of years of molecules coming together and ratcheting up through natural selection, that we are composed only of highways of fluids and chemicals sliding along roadways within billions of dancing cells, that trillions of synaptic conversations hum in parallel, that this vast egglike fabric of micron-thin circuitry runs algorithms undreamt of in modern science, and that these neural programs give rise to our decision making, loves, desires, fears, and aspirations. To me, that understanding would be a numinous experience, better than anything ever proposed in anyone's holy text.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["neuroscience","religion","science","science-vs-religion","spirituality"],"id":98257,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["brain","reality","science"],"id":118912,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"Many „pathogens“ (both chemical and behavioral) can influence how you turn out; these include substance abuse by a mother during pregnancy, maternal stress, and low birth weight. As a child grows, neglect, physical abuse, and head injury can cause problems in mental development. Once the child is grown, substance abuse and exposure to a variety of toxins can damage the brain, modifying intelligence, aggression, and decision-making abilities. The major public health movement to remove lead-based paint grew out of an understanding that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less inteligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive. How you turn out depends on where you´ve been. So when it comes to thinking about blameworthiness, the first difficulty to consider is that people do not choose their own developmental path.It´s problematic to imagine yourself in the shoes of a criminal and conclude, „Well, I wouldn´t have done that“ – because if you weren´t exposed to in utero cocaine, lead poisoning, or physical abuse, and he was, then you and he are not directly comparable.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["brain"],"id":131186,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"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.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["genius","newspaper","thought"],"id":145905,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"We are not at the center of ourselves, but instead — like the Earth in the Milky Way, and the Milky Way in the universe — far out on a distant edge, hearing little of what is transpiring.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["consciousness","far-out","perception","universe"],"id":157500,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"},{"text":"Although we credit God with designing man, it turns out He's not sufficiently skilled to have done so. In point of fact, He unintentionally knocked over the first domino by creating a palette of atoms with different shapes. Electron clouds bonded, molecules bloomed, proteins embraced, and eventually cells formed and learned how to hang on to one another like lovebirds. He discovered that by simmering the Earth at the proper distance from the Sun, it instinctively sprouted with life. He's not so much a creator as a molecule tinkerer who enjoyed a stroke of luck: He simply set the ball rolling by creating a smorgasbord of matter, and creation ensued.","author":"David Eagleman","tags":["science"],"id":159687,"author_id":"David+Eagleman"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":33,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}