Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a read more

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.

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.

...passionate intensity may serve as a substitute for confidence.

...passionate intensity may serve as a substitute for confidence.

...the more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.

...the more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.

Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has read more

Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a read more

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live read more

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live with the natural psychological laws that govern us, understanding how to flow with life rather than struggle against it. We can return to our natural state of contentment.

The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself.

The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself.