List of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Quotes

In Fact, On One Occasion, A Rather Pedantic Experimental Psychologist Was Telling Him About A Long, Complicated Experiment He Had Done, Incorporating All The Proper Controls And Using Considerable Technical Virtuosity. When He Saw Crick's Exasperated Expression He Said, "but Dr. Crick, We Have Got It Right - We Know It's Right," Crick's Response Was, "the Point Is Not Whether It's Right. The Point Is: Does It Even Matter Whether Its Right Or Wrong?"

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.

If You're A Thinking Person, The Liver Is Interesting, But Nothing Is More Intriguing Than The Brain.

You Cant Just Take An Image And Randomly Distort It And Call It Art - Although Many People In La Jolla Where I Come From Do Precisely That.

A Genius Is Somebody Who Seemingly Just Reaches Out Of Nowhere.

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.

In The Fetus, Or A Really Young Child, All The Different Brain Areas Are Connected To Each Other, Diffusely. And As The Brain Develops, The Excess Connections Are Turned Off, So You Get Very Specialized Areas. So Most People Have Really Specialized Talents. What Happens In Creative People Is This Pooling Doesn't Take Place.

The Adage That Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction Seems To Be Especially True For The Workings Of The Brain.

Think About What Artists, Novelists And Poets Have In Common: The Ability To Engage In Metaphorical Thinking, Linking Seemingly Unrelated Ideas, Such As, 'it Is The East, And Juliet Is The Sun.'

Self-awareness Is A Trait That Not Only Makes Us Human But Also Paradoxically Makes Us Want To Be More Than Merely Human. As I Said In My Bbc Reith Lectures, “science Tells Us We Are Merely Beasts, But We Don’t Feel Like That. We Feel Like Angels Trapped Inside The Bodies Of Beasts, Forever Craving Transcendence

Great Art Allows You To Transcend Your Mortal Frame And To Reach For The Stars. I Think Great Science Does The Same Thing.

Science Is Like A Love Affair With Nature; An Elusive, Tantalising Mistress. It Has All The Turbulence, Twists And Turns Of Romantic Love, But Thats Part Of The Game.