Charles Darwin Quotes

A fly with a brain the size of a salt grain has the behavioral repertoire nearly as complex as a much larger animal such as a mouse. That's a super-interesting problem from an engineering perspective.

An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being's, can learn a maze; the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat.

Absolute brain size does not tell you everything or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn't have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations.

Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals.

Amongst the minds of animals that of man leads, not as a demigod from another planet, but as a king from the same race.

Pigs are smarter than dogs, and both are smarter than Congress.

A cockroach likely has no less brainpower than a butterfly, but we're quicker to deny it consciousness because it's a species we dislike.

There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties.

We think of computers as smart and powerful machines. But your goldfish is smarter.

A computer can have so much more in its brain that a human can.

Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut.

Consider a cow. A cow doesn't have the problem-solving skill of a chimpanzee, which has discovered how to get termites out of the ground by putting a stick into a hole. Evolution has developed the brain's ability to solve puzzles, and at the same time has produced in our brain a pleasure of solving problems.

In proportion to our body mass, our brain is three times as large as that of our nearest relatives. This huge organ is dangerous and painful to give birth to, expensive to build and, in a resting human, uses about 20 per cent of the body's energy even though it is just 2 per cent of the body's weight. There must be some reason for all this evolutionary expense.

What differentiates human from lower-animal consciousness is time. You can't explain the concept of "tomorrow" to your dog. Our consciousness is dominated by time - We're constantly running simulations of the future. Our brain is a prediction machine. The hallmark of intelligence, indeed of genius, is the number and complexity of the feedback loops we use in predicting the future.

I think that the artificial-intelligence people are making a lot of noise recently, claiming that artificial intelligence is making huge progress and we're going to be outstripped by the machines. But, in my view, this whole field is based on a misconception. I think the brain is analog, whereas the machines are digital. They really are different. So I think that what the machines can do, of course, is wonderful, but it's not the same as what the brain can do.

So that's little Scorpious. Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank god you've inherited your mother's brains.

Individuals possessing moderate-sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their appropriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

But he could not taste, he could not feel. In the teashop among the tables and the chattering waiters the appalling fear came over him- he could not feel. He could reason; he could read, Dante for example, quite easily…he could add up his bill; his brain was perfect; it must be the fault of the world then- that he could not feel.

Though the Life Force supplies us with its own purpose, it has no other brains to work with than those it has painfully and imperfectly evolved in our heads.

The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental.

An oral society develops both sides of your brain, and the utilization of your brain is more complete than in a linear education module. The written word limits your brain capability by immediately focusing on one area. You don't have any peripheral vision. It immediately divorces you from the environment.

A woman (Terri Schiavo) was healthy. There was brain damage, there was no question. But from a health point of view, she was not terminally ill.

Just give the brain the information and it will figure it out.