Analyzing a concept can (perhaps) tell you what the concept means (at least means to some philosophers), but it does not tell you anything about whether the concept is true of anything in the world.
Patricia ChurchlandI am less attracted to guesses about what cannot be done, than about making progress on a problem.
Patricia ChurchlandIt seems that the brain has a "small world" architecture - or at least the cortex does. Everything can connect to everything else in a few synaptic steps.
Patricia ChurchlandIt is surely important that the differences between coma, deep sleep, being under anesthesia, on the one hand, and being alert on the other, all involve changes in the brain.
Patricia ChurchlandHumility bids us to take ourselves as we are; we do not have to be cosmically significant to be genuinely significant.
Patricia ChurchlandIt is important to understand that while oxytocin may be the hub of the evolution of the social brain in mammals, it is part of a very complex system. Part of what it does is act in opposition to stress hormones, and in that sense release of oxytocin feels good - as stress hormones and anxiety do not feel good.
Patricia Churchland