Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.

Who you are depends on the sum total of your neurobiology.

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.

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

Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it.

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.

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."