Vilayanur S. Ramachandran quotes - page 2

Everyone knows that metaphors are important, yet we have no idea why. (Vilayanur S. Ramachandran)
My mother was religious; she was knowledgeable about mythology and scriptures; she could tell the metaphysical nuances and make the story come to life with their deeper significance. The current generation is missing out on this. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The adage that fact is stranger than fiction seems to be especially true for the workings of the brain. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The minute you succumb to outside pressure, you cease to be creative. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Whether a country is to be called 'civilised' or not, depends not on how affluent the upper 10 per cent are, but how well they treat the lower 10 per cent. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
There are 100 billion neurons in the adult human brain, and each neuron makes something like 1,000 to 10,000 contacts with other neurons in the brain. Based on this, people have calculated that the number of permutations and combinations of brain activity exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Curiosity illuminates the correct path to anything in life. If you're not curious, that's when your brain is starting to die. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Indeed, the line between perceiving and hallucinating is not as crisp as we like to think. In a sense, when we look at the world, we are hallucinating all the time. One could almost regard perception as the act of choosing the one hallucination that best fits the incoming data. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and Internet, you're actually quite literally connected by your neurons. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
What the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
People think of art and science as being fundamentally opposed to each other, because art is about celebrating individual human creativity, and science is about discovering general principles, not about individual people. But in fact, the two have a lot in common, and the creative spirit is similar in both. (Vilayanur S. Ramachandran)
Even today no computer can understand language as well as a three-year-old or see as well as a mouse. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Without ducking responsibility, what's wrong with medicine today is that it is predicated on providing treatment, not on reducing suffering. Not on solving problems. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Great art allows you to transcend your mortal frame and to reach for the stars. I think great science does the same thing. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Yet as human beings we have to accept-with humility-that the question of ultimate origins will always remain with us, no matter how deeply we understand the brain and the cosmos that it creates. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Here is a neuron that fires when I reach and grab something, but it also fires when I watch Joe reaching and grabbing something. ... It's as though this neuron is adopting the other person's point of view. View quote
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran