The deep secret of the brain is that not only the spinal cord but the entire central nervous system works this way: internally generated activity is modulated by sensory input. In this view, the difference between being awake and being asleep is merely that the data coming in from the eyes anchors the perception.

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded.

...you are battered and bruised in the collisions between reminiscence and reality.

The majority of human beings live their whole lives unaware that they are only seeing a limited cone of vision at any moment.

Our internal life and external actions are steered by biological coctails to which we have neither immediate access nor direct acquaintance.

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.

Death... The moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.