Our Ability To Perceive The World Around

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.

Even Though Its Common Knowledge These Days, It Never Ceases To Amaze Me That All The Richness Of Our Mental Life - All Our Feelings, Our Emotions, Our Thoughts, Our Ambitions, Our Love Life, Our Religious Sentiments And Even What Each Of Us Regards Us His Own Intimate Private Self - Is Simply The Activity Of These Little Specks Of Jelly In Your Head, In Your Brain. There Is Nothing Else.

Any Ape Can Reach For A Banana, But Only Humans Can Reach For The Stars.

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

Even Today No Computer Can Understand Language As Well As A Three-year-old Or See As Well As A Mouse.