david clark

“quite opposite to Descartes’s organ metaphor, our global neuronal workspace does not operate in an input-output manner, waiting to be stimulated before producing its outputs. On the contrary, even in full darkness, it ceaselessly broadcasts global patterns of neural activity, causing what William James called the “stream of consciousness”—an uninterrupted flow of loosely connected thoughts, primarily shaped by our current goals and only occasionally seeking information in the senses. René Descartes could not have imagined a machine of this sort, where intentions, thoughts, and plans continually pop up to shape our behavior. The outcome, I argue, is a “free-willing” machine that resolves Descartes’s challenge”
― Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

“In one case, a group of innocent American tourists was taken on a tour bus through a country the members later described as “either France or Sweden” and subjected to three days of looking at old, dirty buildings in cities where it was not possible to get a cheeseburger.”
― Dave Barry, Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need

“volley my opinions, to appear more confident about them than I really am, to appear smarter than I really am, to appear better and more authoritative than I really am. I have to work harder than most people to avoid a life of smug superficiality. I’ve also become more aware that, like many people these days, I have lived a life of vague moral aspiration—vaguely wanting to be good, vaguely wanting to serve some larger purpose, while lacking a concrete moral vocabulary, a clear understanding of how to live a rich inner life, or even a clear knowledge of how character is developed and depth is achieved.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“as Lynch pored over financial spreadsheets at work, he wondered: What if there really is a Z? What if the jungle had concealed such a place? Even today, the Brazilian government estimates that there are more than sixty Indian tribes that have never been contacted by outsiders. “These forests are . . . almost the only place on earth where indigenous people can survive in isolation from the rest of mankind,” John Hemming, the distinguished historian of Brazilian Indians and a former director of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote. Sydney Possuelo, who was in charge of the Brazilian department set up to protect Indian tribes, has said of these groups, “No one knows for sure who they are, where they are, how many they are, and what languages they speak.” In 2006, members of a nomadic tribe called Nukak-Makú emerged from the Amazon in Colombia and announced that they were ready to join the modern world, though they were unaware that Colombia was a country and asked if the planes overhead were on an invisible road.”
― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon