Michael Gazzaniga Quotes

The interpretive mechanism of the left celebral hemisphere is always hard at work, seeking the meaning of events. It is constantly looking for order and reason, even when there is none - which leads it continually to make mistakes.

Experiments on split-brain patients reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient's brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: I wanted to go get a Coke.

The arts are not frosting but baking soda.

Don't leave home without your left hemisphere

While there have been great technological advances in the study of the brain, yielding enormous amounts of data on its physical and psychological characteristics, the old problem of relating mind to brain in a reasonable fashion remains unaccomplished.

The human brain is generally regarded as a complex web of adaptations built into the nervous system, even though no one knows how.