Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.

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.

And anyway, once you allowed yourself to picture such a scenario, it couldn't happen. That was just the way life went.

He who seeks knowledge is wise

Sometimes some questions... shouldn't been answered... sometimes some stuff should be kept private... sometimes some people should just exist in specific places...

A non-violent world has roots in a non-violent diet.

Fighting Dad's not a fight. Fighting dad is, "Hi, you've just instigated your own mugging! Come on down!"

If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.

Democrats with a good understanding of the need for strong energy policy in our country, especially in these difficult economic times, recognized the importance of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive.

What's funny is we were doing some fire at work the other day and it was reminding me of all the firework I got to do as Havok, because a lot of that was as practical as you could get.

I see myself as 38, but you don't notice it.