If you cannot always elicit a straight answer from the unconscious brain, how can you access its knowledge? Sometimes the trick is merely to probe what your gut is telling you. So the next time a friend laments that she cannot decide between two options, tell her the easiest way to solve her problem: flip a coin. She should specify which option belongs to heads and which to tails, and then let the coin fly. The important part is to assess her gut feeling after the coin lands. If she feels a subtle sense of relief at being "told" what to do by the coin, that's the right choice for her.

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

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

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

I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to...ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now.

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

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