Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them.

I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.

Regarding the Laws of Thermodynamics: "(1) You can't win, (2) you can't break even, and (3) you can't get out of the game.

The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws and what is learned of one will be known of the other.

Frustration is not the way to go.

Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.

I'm surprised that I actually pulled off the recording, getting all those people at the same time.

If anyone should have a reason to not be afraid, to move beyond the expectations of culture, that is kind of the whole message of Christianity.

I love great animation.

Hope radiates outward from the center of our concerns. Hope dares us to stare the miraculous in the eye and have the courage not to look away.