Brains are like representative democracies. They are built of multiple, overlapping experts who weigh in and compete over different choices.

We believe we're seeing the world just fine until it's called to our attention that we're not.

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

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.

Everything that creates itself upon the backs of smaller scales will by those same scales be consumed.

People wouldn't even go into science unless there was something much bigger to be discovered, something that is transcendent.

Behavior is the outcome of the battle among internal systems.