Quotes About Cognition

with. In a very real sense, we do not see the world — we see what our brain tells us we see.

People tend to conceive things as true when they wish them to be true.

She did not think policeman—she simply watched and took in images, sounds, sensations.

If the mind were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it.

The lesson of these new insights is that our brain is entirely like any of our physical muscles: Use it or lose it.

If we were magically shrunk and put into someone's brain while she was thinking, we would see all the pumps, pistons, gears and levers working away, and we would be able to describe their workings completely, in mechanical terms, thereby completely describing the thought processes of the brain. But that description would nowhere contain any mention of thought! It would contain nothing but descriptions of pumps, pistons, levers! —G. W. LEIBNIZ (1646–1716)

In the latest brain image studies, we can see real-time movies of individual interneuronal connections actually creating new synapses (connection points between neurons), so we can see our brain create our thoughts and in turn see our thoughts create our brain.

Predicting the future is actually the primary reason that we have a brain.

Hoewel we de illusie hebben dat we beelden met hoge resolutie ontvangen van onze ogen, stuurt de oogzenuw slechts contouren en aanwijzingen over interessante punten in ons blikveld naar het brein. We 'hallucineren' eigenlijk de wereld vanuit ons corticale geheugen.

we are constantly predicting the future and hypothesizing what we will experience. This expectation influences what we actually perceive. Predicting the future is actually the primary reason that we have a brain.

Moreover, the detailed arrangement of connections and synapses in a given region is a direct product of how extensively that region is used. As brain scanning has attained sufficiently high resolution to detect dendritic-spine growth and the formation of new synapses, we can see our brain grow and adapt to literally follow our thoughts. This gives new shades of meaning to Descartes' dictum "I think therefore I am.

a mind is a brain that is conscious.

The enchantment of intelligence seems to be reduced to "nothing" when we fully understand its methods. The mystery that is left is the intrigue inspired by the remaining, not as yet understood methods of intelligence.

In my view there is something essentially special, after all, about human beings. We were the first species on Earth to combine a cognitive function and an effective opposable appendage (the thumb), so we were able to create technology that would extend our own horizons. No other species on Earth has accomplished this.

we each appear to have two brains, not one, and we can do pretty well with either.

Work by physiology professor Benjamin Libet at the University of California at Davis shows that neural activity to initiate an action actually occurs about a third of a second before the brain has made the decision to take the action.

you create your brain from the input you get.

Intelligence is that faculty of mind by which order is perceived in a situation previously considered disordered." —R. W. Young

Our everyday "commonsense" knowledge as a human being is even greater; "street smarts" actually require substantially more of our neocortex than "book smarts." Including this brings our estimate to well over 100 million patterns, taking into account the redundancy factor of about 100.

What you remember, it's real. It doesn't matter how accurate your memory of something is, it is real to you. What you perceive as reality is reality.

The lengths that post-analytical philosophers of mind have gone to in order to avoid acknowledging contents of consciousness have been extraordinary.

Intentionality highlights the mystery of what brains are, ultimately, supposed to do; namely, to make other items, indeed worlds, appear to someone.

But even those who locate the roots of consciousness in the brain should still recognize that brains together create a space that cannot be stuffed back into the brain.

The only object we truly possess is our own mind. The only pleasure over which we have complete dominion is the progress of our own understanding.