Quotes by Neuroscientists - Page 22

Fairytales are healthy for the children. As they grow up, the magical thinking wears off, but the fairytale-induced creative brain circuits stay forever.
Abhijit Naskar
There is only one ideal in the world, which is, the light of knowledge – the light of truth.
Abhijit Naskar
​God is hardwired within the neural circuitry.
Abhijit Naskar
Think of strength, dream of strength, live of strength.
Abhijit Naskar
If you think of your own mother to be the only true mother in the world and thereby start belittling people from other mothers as bastards, that makes you a bigot and a germ on the face of earth. This is an unhealthy bias, even though in your personal mental universe it may provide you extreme comfort. This is exactly what we see in the religious fundamentalists.
Abhijit Naskar
No Quran, no Bible, no Gita, no Cow, is greater than the human self.
Abhijit Naskar
It is necessary for the future scientists interested in the field of Neurotheology, to have a bit naïve approach towards the whole idea of God and religion beyond the conventional labels of religion and atheism.
Abhijit Naskar
If origin defines race, then the entire human race is African.
Abhijit Naskar
The brain becomes illogical, in the throes of new romance.
Abhijit Naskar
Remember, never give up on love. It is easier to give up in search of a better prize, because the brain always keeps craving for new stimulants, but this way you only keep on searching, never to find peace in love. Let me tell you a story. There was a student who asked his teacher, what is love. The teacher said go into the field and bring me the most beautiful flower. The student returned with no flower at hand andsaid, I found the most beautiful flower in the field but I didn't pick it up for I might find a better one, but when I returned to the place, it was gone.We always look for the best in life. When we finally see it, we take it for granted and after some time start expecting a better one, not knowing that it's the best. Seek for your love, and once you have it never ever give up on it, no matter the situations.
Abhijit Naskar
You can tell a lot about the intellectual and moral progress of a nation’s citizens, by the quality and nature of the films they watch.
Abhijit Naskar
Upon entering into the divine domain of transcendence, all these religious founders truly felt that they had accessed the true meaning of the universe, while in reality, what they had access to, in that state of mind, was their inner self.
Abhijit Naskar
Let your child be the torch of truth and they shall shine over the entirety of the human society brightening even the darkest corners.
Abhijit Naskar
The best way to avoid a catastrophic conflict of beliefs is to be more compassionate about other people’s beliefs as long as they do not advocate for prejudices, bigotry and sectarianism.
Abhijit Naskar
It is your existential responsibility to raise your child as a human being above everything else – catholic, muslim, jew, asian, caucasian or whatever.
Abhijit Naskar
One of the first things we teach medical students is to listen to the patient by taking a careful medical history. Ninety percent of the time, you can arrive at an uncannily accurate diagnosis by paying close attention, using physical examination and sophisticated lab test to confirm your hunch (and to increase the bill to the insurance company).
V.S. Ramachandran
I do not see emotions and feelings as the intangible and vaporous qualities that many presume them to be. Their subject matter is concrete, and they can be related to specific systems in body and brain, no less so than vision or speech.
António R. Damásio
It is always now
Sam Harris
It is the ultimate religion, through which the son, the Father and all elements of the universe become unified.
Abhijit Naskar
I am the thread of unification that goes through humans of all religions, cultures and ideologies while reinforcing their innate sense of one humanity.
Abhijit Naskar
Various fascinating psychological elements are involved in the transcendental state of human consciousness. One may lose the ability to distinguish one’s self from the rest of the world in transcendence, but still it is the human brain that constructs that state of mind. Hence, even in that altered state of consciousness one is not totally devoid of one’s beliefs, conjectures, ideas and fantasies. In fact, these ideas fill up the transcendental experience with all kinds of fanatic stories that happen to be unique, based on the person’s inner urges and drives.
Abhijit Naskar
Death is the ultimate cessation of the individual Self.
Abhijit Naskar
Once upon a time, there was a civilization in the eastern side of the world. It was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet that existed during that time.This civilization was the glorious Indus valley civilization. No, I am not talking about India. I am talking about the land of greatness that got lost in time. Today, in the same geographical location of that great civilization, we have a piece of earth, which is known as “India”. But do not mistake it to be the same glorious land that existed thousands of years ago, along with other magnificent civilizations, such as the Greeks, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians etc.
Abhijit Naskar
The Human Self is the only friend and savior to all humanity.
Abhijit Naskar
I am a scientist, and as such I am proud to say that being stupid at times is a very human thing. Be proud to be stupid, be proud to be fool. Being a fool is a billion times better than being blinded by the illusion of intellect. I admit I am a fool, but at the very least, with each passing day I do my best to get lesser fool.
Abhijit Naskar
Often during writing, I am compelled by OCD to delete and rewrite a word or sentence over and over again.
Abhijit Naskar
End the eternal battle of beliefs once and for all. If you are a believer, love your fellow non-believer for all the good things he or she has to offer. And if you are an atheist, then love your fellow believer for all the positivity he or she possesses.
Abhijit Naskar
Even though the advocates of feminism gladly use the term to refer to equality between man and woman, the common human brain is not capable of perceiving such equality beyond the gender bias of the very word. It'll be same as using Man to refer to both genders. Hence, the only words suitable in this scenario are Humanism and Human, rather than Feminism and Man.
Abhijit Naskar
Take the clapper and become the alarm that the world so desperately needs.
Abhijit Naskar
After the dinosaurs, it is us the humans that have become the dominant species on planet earth. However, unlike the dinosaurs, we have become the rulers of this planet not by ferociousness, but by intelligence, even though we are no less ferociousness than them.
Abhijit Naskar
To point out nonepistemic motives in another’s view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt upon a person’s connection to the world as it is.
Sam Harris
Nobody wants great things for you. They all want you to be something they deem important for them.
Abhijit Naskar
Without the Mind, there is no God. Without you, there is no God.
Abhijit Naskar
Being homosexual is no more abnormal than being lefthanded.
Abhijit Naskar
Leaving out appraisal also would render the biological description of the phenomena of emotion vulnerable to the caricature that emotions without an appraisal phase are meaningless events. It would be more difficult to see how beautiful and amazingly intelligent emotions can be, and how powerfully they can solve problems for us.
António R. Damásio
Killing a bunch of Jihadis may be morally justified, to save humanity from their wrath, but it won't terminate Jihad for long. Jihad or Holy war would keep festering one way or another, until religious fundamentalism is eradicated from the human society. Until the whole humanity learns to scrutinize its most revered scriptures with the sharp tool of reasoning, Jihad will keep on striking over the world. If one does not have the basic conscientious capacity to refute the primitive textual verses of the scriptures that demand one to kill or torture another being for holding a different belief system than one's own, then that entity is no being of the civilized human society, it is merely a pest from the stone-age. No Quran, no Bible, no Gita, no Cow, is greater than the human self. There shall be hope for harmony and peace in the world, only when fundamentalism is destroyed forever. Harmony is not a luxury, it is an existential necessity of the species. And to achieve it, if a hundred Bibles have to be sacrificed, then be it. But for no Bible, Quran or Gita, can harmony be compromised.
Abhijit Naskar
Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains.
David Eagleman
The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.
Sam Harris
Fear and Love are the two emotional pillars of survival.
Abhijit Naskar
There is never a moment where I find Trump persuasive. When I look at him I see a man without any inner life. I see the most superficial person on Earth. This is a guy who has been totally hollowed out by greed and self regard and delusion. The way he talks about himself; if I caught some sort of brain virus and I started talking about myself the way Trump talks about himself, I would throw myself out a fucking window. That barely overstates it. Do you remember that scene at the end of the in The Exorcist where the priest is driving out the devil from Linda Blair and the devil comes into him and he just hurls himself out the window to end all the madness? Well, it would be like that. - Sam Harris
Sam Harris
The real virtue is not to be free from desires but to be content with what you have.
Abhijit Naskar
there is no place of politics in education. The moment you let politics invade your education system, you inadvertently welcome chaos into the future of young India. Educational institutions have nothing to do with political propagandas. So, open your eyes, and throw any kind of political agenda out of your institutions.
Abhijit Naskar
The one ultimate rule of the Quranic fundamentalists is “there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet”. Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith. At moment’s notice, every man or woman, who does not exactly believe in that, must be killed.... This is not religion my friend. This is primitiveness at its worst.
Abhijit Naskar
It is a tragedy of modern life that the light of truth scares the society much more than the darkness of ignorance.
Abhijit Naskar
Promoting promiscuity in this evolved and civilized society is actually like signing the Declaration, that says:“I hereby renounce my membership of humankind, since I am neither human nor kind. I declare that I no longer belong to the modern human species, i.e. the Homo sapiens. From now on I shall be counted among the swingers of the animal kingdom, such as the bonobo or montane vole. I am simply an arrogant philandering savage.
Abhijit Naskar
A healthy world is made of healthy nations. A healthy nation is made of healthy families. And a healthy family can only be raised on the foundation of a monogamous relationship.
Abhijit Naskar
Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another.
Abhijit Naskar
Theology is ignorance with wings.
Sam Harris
All men either consciously or subconsciously crave for authority over their environment, especially over their peers in the society, male and female alike. Women on the other hand, crave for intimacy especially from their female peers in the society. Colloquially this is what you call “gossiping”.
Abhijit Naskar
You don’t need to see yourself through the delusional eyes of the society. It’s the society that needs to see you, through your eyes.
Abhijit Naskar
All religions are born from individual experiences of divine awakening, not from some books.
Abhijit Naskar
When you say to someone "follow your heart", it actually refers to the rhetorical representation of various emotions, that are precisely produced from neural activity of the limbic system.
Abhijit Naskar
We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).
Sam Harris
​You are only limited by your imagination.
Abhijit Naskar
The methodical implementation of modern human faculties that allow us human beings to transcend the physical limits of biological evolution is Education. However, today, the term education has become somehow synonymous with economic benefits and due to the primeval craving for security, it has disgracefully lost its very core of transcendence into the unknown. Thus, the very evolutionary seeds that gave birth to the method known as education have gone almost extinct in the modern industrialized system of soulless competition and regurgitation. Hence emerged the reason for me to get to the root of its quite unofficially accepted problems, and to concoct the thought processes that would make necessary amendments to the perceptual errors of what I call the three major nodes of education system, which are the teachers, the students and the parents.
Abhijit Naskar
A religion that demands absolutely irrefutable obedience, is anything but religion.
Abhijit Naskar
No book on this planet can give you the description of terms like religion, spirituality, divinity unless you discover it within the realm of your own mind.
Abhijit Naskar
One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not--that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral--that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings.
Sam Harris
Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.
David Eagleman
Meditate upon yourself and you'll find bliss.
Abhijit Naskar