Quotes by Cognitive Neuroscientists

While reading, we can leave our own consciousness, and pass over into the consciousness of another person, another age, another culture. "Passing over," a term used by the theologian John Dunne, describes the process through which reading enables us to try on, identify with, and ultimately enter for a brief time the wholly different perspective of another person's consciousness. When we pass over into how a knight thinks, how a slave feels, how a heroine behaves, and how an evildoer can regret or deny wrongdoing, we never come back quite the same; sometimes we're inspired, sometimes saddened, but we are always enriched. Through this exposure we learn both the commonality and the uniqueness of our own thoughts -- that we are individuals, but not alone.

Maryanne Wolf

Science often progresses by carving out new distinctions that refine the fuzzy categories of natural language.

Stanislas Dehaene

I do not mean, of course, that we can always accurately express our conscious thoughts with Proustian accuracy. Consciousness overflows language: we perceive vastly more than we can describe.

Stanislas Dehaene