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    Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

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Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.

Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.

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Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or our worthlessness, we are almost impervious read more

Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or our worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter worthlessness can be a source of courage.

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When we find a thinker reflecting or echoing an apparently erroneous, narrow, or even illogical thought that was popular or read more

When we find a thinker reflecting or echoing an apparently erroneous, narrow, or even illogical thought that was popular or authoritative in his time, we must never rule out the possibility that what we have discovered is not the limit of his vision but only an example of his deliberate rhetorical accommodation to reigning prejudice which he does not share but thinks it best not to expose.

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I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

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But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

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Most people would find it bizarre to speak of tolerating blonds. For whatever reason, hair color has not been a read more

Most people would find it bizarre to speak of tolerating blonds. For whatever reason, hair color has not been a basis of tribal identity or group politics in our culture; the concept of tolerance is never invoked in this context because there is too obviously nothing to tolerate. In a rational culture, the same would be true of race, ethnicity, and the like.

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We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical read more

We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.

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We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

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New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

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