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Ashwini Kumar

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Ashwini’s Bookshelves

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“What do we mean by "knowledge" or "understanding"? And how do billions of neurons achieve them? These are complete mysteries. Admittedly, cognitive neuroscientists are still very vague about the exact meaning of words like "understand," "think," and indeed the word "meaning" itself.”
― V. S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature

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“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”
― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

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“The law of perceptual problem solving, or peekaboo, should now make more sense. It may have evolved to ensure that the search for visual solutions is inherently pleasurable rather than frustrating, so that you don’t give up too easily.”
― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

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“science should be question driven, not methodology driven.”
― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

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“I learned an important lesson: Never take the obvious for granted. Once upon a time, it was so obvious that a four-pound rock would plummet earthward twice as fast as a two-pound rock that no one ever bothered to test it. That is, until Galileo Galilei came along and took ten minutes to perform an elegantly simple experiment that yielded a counterintuitive result and changed the course of history.”
― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

tags: neuroscience

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