Serdar

“For the study of Middle Eastern history, and at the present time one might even add of world history, some knowledge of Islam’s origins and of its scriptures is necessary. Already in my student years I was reading the Koran, the biography of the Prophet, and the extensive literature concerned with them. But at no time did I specialize in these topics. I am not an expert in theology or scripture, and I looked at these, if at all, only with a historian’s eye. I am, by vocation and profession, a historian, principally interested in the history of civilization. Looking back, I see that by this choice I saved myself a lot of trouble. This was not my purpose at the time but I have become well aware of my narrow and fortunate escape from one of the most difficult and dangerous topics of our profession. Even for Muslims, and far more so for non-Muslims, the study of the sacred biography and the sacred text has become highly sensitive, not so much a field of research as a minefield. This has not prevented my critics from attacking me for my treatment of Muslim scripture and sacred biography. In this as in other matters, the attacks came from both sides. On the one side I am accused of traducing Islam and its sanctities, on the other of defending and even concealing its flaws. As long as the attacks continue to come from both sides, I shall remain confident of my scholarly objectivity. Once,”
― Bernard Lewis, Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian

“Clarity of thought will normally produce clarity of style; obscurity of thought will produce obscurity of style.”
― Bernard Lewis, Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian

“In 1714, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that matter alone could never produce a mind. Leibniz was a German philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who is sometimes called “the last man who knew everything”. To Leibniz, brain tissue alone could not have an interior life. He suggested a thought experiment, known today as Leibniz’s Mill. Imagine a large mill. If you were to walk around inside of it, you would see its cogs and struts and levers all moving, but it would be preposterous to suggest that the mill is thinking or feeling or perceiving. How could a mill fall in love or enjoy a sunset? A mill is just made of pieces and parts. And so it is with the brain, Leibniz asserted. If you could expand the brain to the size of a mill and stroll around inside it, you would only see pieces and parts. Nothing would obviously correspond to perception. Everything would simply be acting on everything else. If you wrote down every interaction, it wouldn’t be obvious where thinking and feeling and perceiving reside.”
― David Eagleman, The Brain: The Story of You

“The enemy of memory isn’t time; it’s other memories.”
― David Eagleman, The Brain: The Story of You