One of the most pervasive mistakes is to believe that our visual system gives a faithful representation of what is "out there" in the same way that a movie camera would.

The left hemisphere acts as an "interpreter," watching the actions and behaviors of the body and assigning a coherent narrative to these events. And the left hemisphere works this way even in normal, intact brains. Hidden programs drive actions, and the left hemisphere makes justifications. This idea of retrospective storytelling suggests that we come to know our own attitudes and emotions, at least partially, by inferring them from observations of our own behavior.

One of the most impressive features of brains - and especially human brains - is the flexibility to learn almost any kind of task that comes its way.

If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them.

Every atom in your body is the same quark in different places at the same moment in time.

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

Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains.