David Eagleman
David Eagleman
David Eaglemanis an American writer and neuroscientist, serving as an adjunct associate professor at Stanford University in the department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. He also independently serves as the director of the Center for Science and Law. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a council member in the World Economic Forum, and a New York Times bestselling author published in 28 languages. He is the writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
CountryUnited States of America
What we find is that our brains have colossal things happening in them all the time.
There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position - one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.
There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing.
It is only through us that God lives. When we abandon him, he dies.
Our internal life and external actions are steered by biological coctails to which we have neither immediate access nor direct acquaintance.
Since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.
I always bounce my legs when I'm sitting.
There are an infinite number of boring things to do in science.
What a life in science really teaches you is the vastness of our ignorance.
Every week I get letters from people worldwide who feel that the possibilian point of view represents their understanding better than either religion or neo-atheism.
The three-pound organ in your skull - with its pink consistency of Jell-o - is an alien kind of computational material. It is composed of miniaturized, self-configuring parts, and it vastly outstrips anything we've dreamt of building.
You´re not perceiving what's out there. You're perceiving whatever your brain tells you.
Death... The moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.