February 23, 2012
"The central attribute of human conscious experience, so fundamental, in fact, that we take it for granted, don’t pause to think about it, is the sense of unity. You’ve got a diversity of sensory experiences. You see things, you listen to things. This harks back to what I was saying about synesthesia. You taste things. You have hundreds of memories throughout a lifetime. Yet you think of yourself as a unified person. Yet all of these happen to you… Despite this diversity of sensory experiences, this bewildering sensory cognitive blitz of memories and sensory impressions I experience unity. How does that come about?"

— Legendary neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, author of the excellent The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, shares his adventures in behavioral neurology.  (via curiositycounts)

(via curiositycounts)

4:30pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNHLXyGubpPK
(Notes: 96)
  
Filed under: quote neuroscience psychology 
January 25, 2012
"Teachers in black state schools work an average of 3.5 hours a day, compared with 6.5 hours in the former white state schools known as “Model C”. A fifth of teachers are absent on Fridays, rising to a third at the end of the month. The education minister herself admits that 80% of schools are still “dysfunctional”."

— Officially, 25% of South Africans are unemployed; the real figure is probably nearer 40%. Some accuse the country’s education system of churning out candidates that are largely unemployable. (via theeconomist)

(via theeconomist)

11:30am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNHLXyFL0OqZ
(Notes: 183)
  
Filed under: quote 
September 27, 2011
"This notion that intellectual rigor and kindness do not make good bedfellows is really misguided. It seems predicated on that old unexamined (and heavily gendered) bias between emotion and reason. But it’s a false distinction abrogated by both modern neuroscience and some very old texts."

— On the philosophy and neuropsychology of kindness, which is often falsely framed as a binary opposite to intellect (via curiositycounts)

(via curiositycounts)

8:21pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNHLXy9-e2Kg
(Notes: 59)
  
Filed under: quote psychology neuroscience sociology behavior 
August 26, 2011
"Remus Lupin was supposed to be on the HIV metaphor. It was someone who had been infected young, who suffered stigma, who had a fear of infecting others, who was terrified he would pass on his condition to his son. And it was a way of examining prejudice, unwarranted prejudice towards a group of people. And also, examining why people might become embittered when they’re treated that unfairly."

— J.K. Rowling (via newyorkcanwait)

(via canadawhore)

6:10pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNHLXy8nEfEo
(Notes: 6,899)
  
Filed under: J.K. Rowling Harry Potter Quote Books 
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