One of the first things we teach medical students is to listen to the patient by taking a careful medical history. Ninety percent of the time, you can arrive at an uncannily accurate diagnosis by paying close attention, using physical examination and sophisticated lab test to confirm your hunch (and to increase the bill to the insurance company).

Yet as human beings we have to accept-with humility-that the question of ultimate origins will always remain with us, no matter how deeply we understand the brain and the cosmos that it creates.

There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and Internet, you're actually quite literally connected by your neurons.

Great art allows you to transcend your mortal frame and to reach for the stars. I think great science does the same thing.

Your conscious life is an elaborate after-the-fact rationalization of things you really do for other reasons.

Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.

A genius is somebody who seemingly just reaches out of nowhere.