Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee.

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.

Dreaming pleasantly is spiritual.

Vultures pick the meat clean off a bone. Guilt eats at the marrow, leaving a man hollow.

[He] had riposted with the proper metaphysical statements, yet he was disturbed.

Cute is when a person's personality shines through their looks. Like in the way they walk, every time you see them you just want to run up and hug them.

As an actor, you're pretty much a hired gun. You are reading other people's words off of a page and doing what they want you to do.

It would be nice if we could design a virtual reality in Hyperbolic Space, and meet each other there.

When the passage "All men are born free and equal," when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?

Blushing, palpitations, a bad conscience--this is what you get if you haven't sinned.

God answers prayer in three ways: yes, no, and wait awhile.

I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.