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.

The first thing we learn from studying our own circuitry is a simple lesson: most of what we do and think and feel is not under our conscious control.

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

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.

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.

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

Every week I get letters from people worldwide who feel that the possibilian point of view represents their understanding better than either religion or neo-atheism.