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

There are 100 billion neurons in the adult human brain, and each neuron makes something like 1,000 to 10,000 contacts with other neurons in the brain. Based on this, people have calculated that the number of permutations and combinations of brain activity exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe.

Think about what artists, novelists and poets have in common: the ability to engage in metaphorical thinking, linking seemingly unrelated ideas, such as, 'It is the east, and Juliet is the Sun.'

Without ducking responsibility, what's wrong with medicine today is that it is predicated on providing treatment, not on reducing suffering. Not on solving problems.

If you're a thinking person, the liver is interesting, but nothing is more intriguing than the brain.

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

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