David Eagleman Quotes

90 Sourced Quotes

All creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought.

David Eagleman
Behavior is the outcome of the battle among internal systems.

David Eagleman
All activity in the brain is driven by other activity in the brain, in a vastly complex, interconnected network.

David Eagleman
At least 15 percent of human females possess a genetic mutation that gives them an extra (fourth) type of color photoreceptor - and this allows them to discriminate between colors that look identical to the majority of us with a mere three types of color photoreceptors.

David Eagleman
Odor carries a great deal of information, including information about a potential mate's age, sex, fertility, identity, emotions, and health.

David Eagleman
A typical neuron makes about ten thousand connections to neighboring neurons. 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.

David Eagleman
Awareness of your surroundings occurs only when sensory inputs violate expectations. When the world is successfully predicted away, awareness is not needed because the brain is doing its job well.

David Eagleman
Each cell sends electrical pulses to other cells, up to hundreds of times per second. If you represented each of these trillions and trillions of pulses in your brain by a single photon of light, the combined output would be blinding.

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

David Eagleman
You are more likely to believe that a statement is true if you have heard it before - whether or not it is actually true.

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

David Eagleman
In our current understanding of science, we can't find the physical gap in which to slip free will - the uncaused causer - because there seems to be no part of the machinery that does not follow in a causal relationship from the other parts.

David Eagleman
If you have certain problems with your brain but are raised in a good home, you might turn out okay. If your brain is fine and your home is terrible, you might still turn out fine. But if you have mild brain damage and end up with a bad home life, you're tossing the dice for a very unlucky synergy.

David Eagleman
Some men may be genetically inclined to have and hold a single partner, while some may not. In the near future, young women who stay current with the scientific literature may demand genetic tests of their boyfriends to assess how likely they are to make faithful husbands.

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

David Eagleman
If you ever feel lazy or dull, take heart: you're the busiest, brightest thing on the planet.

David Eagleman
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.

David Eagleman
Think about the brain as the densest concentration of youness. It's the peak of the mountain, but not the whole mountain.

David Eagleman
Modern neuroimaging is like asking an astronaut in the space shuttle to look out the window and judge how America is doing.

David Eagleman
The drives you take for granted ("I'm a hetero/homosexual," "I'm attracted to children/adults," "I'm aggressive/not aggressive," and so on) depend on the intricate details of your neural machinery.

David Eagleman
The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.

David Eagleman
We are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe.

David Eagleman
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.

David Eagleman
If choices and decisions derive from hidden mental processes, then free choice is either an illusion or, at minimum, more tightly constrained than previously considered.

David Eagleman
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.

David Eagleman