What do we mean by "knowledge" or "understanding"? And how do billions of neurons achieve them? These are complete mysteries. Admittedly, cognitive neuroscientists are still very vague about the exact meaning of words like "understand," "think," and indeed the word "meaning" itself.
Vilayanur S. RamachandranIf you're a thinking person, the liver is interesting, but nothing is more intriguing than the brain.
Vilayanur S. RamachandranWithout ducking responsibility, what's wrong with medicine today is that it is predicated on providing treatment, not on reducing suffering. Not on solving problems.
Vilayanur S. RamachandranRemember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.
Vilayanur S. RamachandranIndeed, the line between perceiving and hallucinating is not as crisp as we like to think. In a sense, when we look at the world, we are hallucinating all the time. One could almost regard perception as the act of choosing the one hallucination that best fits the incoming data.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran