I want to give people theories, I want to expose them to scientific stories that force them to re-evaluate the way they use these three pounds of meat inside their head.

When we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art.

I want to give people theories, I want to expose them to scientific stories that force them to re-evaluate the way they use these three pounds of meat inside their head.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.

Children can't help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.

The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.

How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense—if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example—then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain.