Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Quotes

Whether consciousness is implanted in us by something divine, or whether it is created by the efforts of our brains, the end result is the same. We are.

Some people are amazed at my brain, but really it's nothing.

The scientist is not much given to talking of the riddle of the universe. "Riddle" is not a scientific term. The conception of a riddle is "something which can he solved." And hence the scientist does not use that popular phrase. We don't know the why of anything. On that matter we are no further advanced than was the cavedweller. The scientist is contented if he can contribute something toward the knowledge of what is and how it is.

If the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.

It is not so much that we, using our brains, spin our yarns, as that our brains, using yarns, spin us.

For us to remain in this world, our animal brain has to be there to support us.

If you just take it down to bare facts, the reason for living is the reason you make it. I mean the brain was made to create.

As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so

It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.

We have learned more about the brain in the last fifteen years than in all prior human history, and the mind, once considered out of reach, is finally assuming center stage.

The brain and its satellite glands have now been probed to the point where no particular site remains that can reasonably be supposed to harbour a nonphysical mind.

The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe.

...we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations.

You certainly can't tell anything from the microscopic structure of the brain whether the person was an idiot or a genius.

It seems that the brain always has to be active, and if the auditory parts of the brain are not getting sufficient input, then they may start to create hallucinatory sounds on their own. Although it is curious that they do not usually create noises or voices; they create music.

Brain deals exclusively with the physical, and mind exclusively with the metaphysical.

There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.

With my work I attempt to help man to overcome his alienation; I do this by surrounding his daily life with objects, which confront him in a tactile way with the final and deepest problems of our existence. I want the means that I employ to create the necessary stimulus to be as direct as possible. Instead of giving a sermon on humility, I often prefer to depict humility itself.

Hunger, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind. Hitherto I had never known what hunger really meant. I was likely to understand it now.

Look up at the stars and you're gone.

If it is mind that we are searching the brain, then we are supposing the brain to be much more than a telephone-exchange. We are supposing it to be a telephone-exchange along with subscribers as well.

I've held a brain in my hands, which is an extraordinary experience.

Your intelligence is so deeply entangled with the social identification that you have taken on, your brains are not working in line with the life within you; it is working against your own life. That is the source of misery.

The way Calvin's brain is wired, you can almost hear the fuses blowing.

There are three kinds of brains. The one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others.