Neurology Quotes

“In the statistical gargon used in psychology, p refers to the probability that the difference you see between two groups (of introverts and extroverts, say, or males and females) could have occurred by chance. As a general rule, psychologists report a difference between two groups as 'significant' if the probability that it could have occurred by chance is 1 in 20, or less. The possibility of getting significant results by chance is a problem in any area of research, but it's particularly acute for sex differences research. Supppose, for example, you're a neuroscientist interested in what parts of the brain are involved in mind reading. You get fifteen participants into a scanner and ask them to guess the emotion of people in photographs. Since you have both males and females in your group, you rin a quick check to ensure that the two groups' brains respond in the same way. They do. What do you do next? Most likely, you publish your results without mentioning gender at all in your report (except to note the number of male and female participants). What you don't do is publish your findings with the title "No Sex Differences in Neural Circuitry Involved in Understanding Others' Minds." This is perfectly reasonable. After all, you weren't looking for gender difference and there were only small numbers of each sex in your study. But remember that even if males and females, overall, respond the same way on a task, five percent of studies investigating this question will throw up a "significant" difference between the sexes by chance. As Hines has explained, sex is "easily assessed, routinely evaluated, and not always reported. Because it is more interesting to find a difference than to find no difference, the 19 failures to observe a difference between men and women go unreported, whereas the 1 in 20 finding of a difference is likely to be published." This contributes to the so-called file-drawer phenomenon, whereby studies that do find sex differences get published, but those that don't languish unpublished and unseen in a researcher's file drawer.”
― Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference

“Which do you think is more valuable to humanity?

a. Finding ways to tell humans that they have free will despite the incontrovertible fact that their actions are completely dictated by the laws of physics as instantiated in our bodies, brains and environments? That is, engaging in the honored philosophical practice of showing that our notion of "free will" can be compatible with determinism?

or

b. Telling people, based on our scientific knowledge of physics, neurology, and behavior, that our actions are predetermined rather than dictated by some ghost in our brains, and then sussing out the consequences of that conclusion and applying them to society?



Of course my answer is b).”
― Jerry A. Coyne

“The mind, it occurs to me, is an engine. There is an ambient mode in which the mind sits idling, before there is information. Some minds idle in a kind of dreading crouch, waiting to be offended. Others stand up straight, eyes slightly wide, expecting to be pleasantly surprised. Some minds, imagining the great What Is Out There, imagine it intends doom for them; others imagine there is something out there that may be suffering and in need of their help.

Which is right?

Neither.

Both.

Maybe all of our politics is simply neurology writ large. Maybe there are a finite number of idling modes. Maybe there are just two broad modes, and out of this fact comes our current division.”
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“The spirits of the brain are directly connected to the testicles. This is why men who weary their imagination in books are less suitable for procreative functions...”
― Louis de la Forge

“Some people with Tourette's have flinging tics- sudden, seemingly motiveless urges or compulsions to throw objects..... (I see somewhat similar flinging behaviors- though not tics- in my two year old godson, now in a stage of primal antinomianism and anarchy)”
― Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

“Nonconformists aren't just going against the grain; they're going against the brain. Either their brains aren't taking the easy way out to begin with, or in standing apart from their peers, these students are standing up to their biology.”
― Alexandra Robbins, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

“The human brain takes in information from other people and incorporates it with the information coming from its own senses, neuroscientist Gregory Berns has written. Many times, the group's opinion trumps the individual's before he even becomes aware of it.”
― Alexandra Robbins, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

“The nervous system dictates what that soul attracts into her life. If your neurons are destroyed, you won't know where you are, what you want or where you want to go.”
― Vivienne Lamb, Outsmarting the Ego: The Physics of Evil

“The human brain, for all its sophistication, would be useless without its link to the outside world. Consider one experiment that illustrates this point. Volunteers hallucinated when they were deprived of sensory input by being blindfolded and suspended and warm water in a sensory deprivation tank. One saw charging pink and purple elephants. Another heard a chorus, still others had taste hallucinations. Our very sanity depends on a continuous flow of information from the outside.”
― Marieb Elaine N. Hoehn Katja

“What you perceive becomes your reality,
What you believe becomes your reality.
Brain weaves its own fabric of truth,
Why not weave some delectable unity!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn

“Sometimes I don't know if it's my eyes or my memory or both.”
― Niedria Dionne Kenny

“At birth we become elements to entity, upon death the entity reverts to elements.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“At birth we become elements to entity,
upon death the entity reverts to elements.
Make sure to make your trip mean something,
more reason to transcend foolish containments.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“It is only water as long as its internal realm of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, remains intact. If you break that structure which we call H20, it ceases to be water. Likewise, a soul remains a soul, as long as its neural structures remain intact. If you mess with those structures, then the entire personality of the soul may get radically altered. So, to think even further, if those neural structures inside your head stop working, then the soul ceases to exist forever.”
― Abhijit Naskar, When Humans Unite: Making A World Without Borders

“Neurosonnet 2001

Neurons giveth,
neurons taketh away.
By neurons we forge self,
with neurons we fade away.

Within neurons cosmos comes to life,
within neurons worlds come to end.
Neurons are building blocks of walls,
as well as the instrument of bridges.

There is not one but two cosmos,
one made by nature, another by neurons.
We are the makers of observable reality,
shaped by hopes and biases of our own.

Neurons are the birthplace of God,
Neurons produce all ghosts and goblins.
Life is a concoction of neurochemistry,
Boon and bane are both our own making.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Neurons giveth,
neurons taketh away.
By neurons we forge self,
with neurons we fade away.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Dopamine is the brain's blood sugar. It should be stable, not fluctuating for your health.”
― Serhat Beyaz KOROGLU

“The Final Enigma (Sonnet 2002)

Consciousness contains the cosmos,
cosmos contains consciousness,
all rooted in specks of jelly,
firing in frenzy inside our head.

When neurons fire, we see light,
lack of oxygen conjures a tunnel.
Nearing death, hallucinogens kick in,
thus we experience kingdoms mythical.

Neurons forge the fabric of reality,
within neurons our paradise is born.
Neurons concoct our fabled purgatory,
thus our strong beliefs rule perception.

Neurons are the birthplace of order,
within neurons order comes to end.
Neurons are the root of mindlessness,
as well as the instrument of mend.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“From the dark furnace of the human skull dawns the light of humankind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Even the dumbest of us holds in our brain the biggest mystery known to mankind - the neocortex column, and how it works.”
― Siddharth Katragadda, The Other Wife: A Novel in Verse

“Hallucinations are the foundation of perception, delusions are the foundation of persecution. Day you grow up to distinguish between the two, you shall become a pillar of civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Neurons are the prophets of reality, consciousness is the scripture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“If mental illnesses are brain diseases, then they are diseases of the body, not of the mind. In which case psychiatrists would have to conduct themselves like other physicians. That is, inform the patient of their findings and recommendations, and then wait until he consents to or rejects further diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Such limitation of the psychiatrist’s power, would render psychiatry, as we know it, useless.”
― Thomas Szasz, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences

“Cell biology is soul biology.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Neuroscience is Poetry (Sonnet 2717)

Human brain is the most astonishing
transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature,
from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop,
but inside, the very fabric of spacetime
bursts into existence -

we stretch time when we suffer,
we compress time when we're joyful,
we expand space in empathy,
we collapse distance through memory -

we invent gods when we feel helpless,
we invent weapons when we're scared,
we invent poetry when we're inspired,
we invent politics when we want control -

in short, the human brain is bigger
on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Human brain is the most astonishing transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature, from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop, but inside, the very fabric of spacetime bursts into existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Neuroscience is poetry.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“The human brain is bigger on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Neuroscience done honestly dissolves the self.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“I was born of ash, I lived as electricity, I'll end in ash, and someone somewhere will carry my insanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace