Quotes by Neuroscientists - Page 15

Religious faith as a whole induces various health benefits in the general population through complex biological processes.
Abhijit Naskar
Belief is indeed psychologically important for the human mind of general population, but that belief should be nicely compatible with scientific reasoning, otherwise that belief turns into prejudice, which is never beneficial to the human life.
Abhijit Naskar
Psychics, astrology, tarot cards - all these mystical non-sense are signs of a weak mind. Whenever such garbage starts grabbing hold of you, seek the help of a physician or therapist.
Abhijit Naskar
Don't study science. Play with it.
Abhijit Naskar
In this universe, all we perceive is a virtual reality created by the neurons.
Abhijit Naskar
The highest heaven is not in the sky, it is in the human mind.
Abhijit Naskar
Mind and Soul are one and the same thing.
Abhijit Naskar
The purpose of Neurotheology shall be to ease human sufferings with a deeper understanding of the neurobiological substrates of spirituality and divinity.
Abhijit Naskar
Through the newly emerged field of Neurotheology, Scientists such as Andrew Newberg, Michael Persinger, myself and a few others have already taken the first step from the side of Science, to diminish the gap between Science and Religion. Now it is time for Religion to do the same. And the moment any religion does that, the eternal battle between Science and Religion would slowly start to disperse.
Abhijit Naskar
All knowledge that Science has acquired so far, has been through the concentration of the powers of the mind.
Abhijit Naskar
Religious literature from all around the world have an abundance of philosophical teachings as well, which in fact, prove quite helpful to humanity. But a rational human being must examine every single word from the scriptures before accepting it. Otherwise, it would only lead to religious bulimia, which in turn would bring chaos down on earth.
Abhijit Naskar
Things remain paranormal, as long as we scientists don't reveal the underlying physical processes.
Abhijit Naskar
After the dinosaurs, it is us the humans that have become the dominant species on planet earth. However, unlike the dinosaurs, we have become the rulers of this planet not by ferociousness, but by intelligence, even though we are no less ferociousness than them.
Abhijit Naskar
It has always been science versus fundamentalism, not science versus religion.
Abhijit Naskar
The female brain is engineered to avoid conflicts at all cost, whereas the male brain pleasures conflicts in the purpose of being the boss.
Abhijit Naskar
Needless to say, there are people who hate Arabs, Somalis, and other immigrants from predominantly Muslim societies for racist reasons. But if you can’t distinguish that sort of blind bigotry from a hatred and concern for dangerous, divisive, and irrational ideas—like a belief in martyrdom, or a notion of male “honor” that entails the virtual enslavement of women and girls—you are doing real harm to our public conversation. Everything I have ever said about Islam refers to the content and consequences of its doctrine. And, again, I have always emphasized that its primary victims are innocent Muslims—especially women and girls.
Sam Harris
I am not a teacher of humanity, I am merely servant of humanity.
Abhijit Naskar
Be naive and curious. That's all you need to become a scientist.
Abhijit Naskar
Current research in any field of Science has not yet reached the point where we could start exploring the existential question regarding God as a Supreme Entity driving causality in the universe. However, as modern Neuroscience progresses further and gets more advanced, we shall get to dive deeper into the physiological processes underneath the Qualia of God in human mind.
Abhijit Naskar
When circumstances pour the minds of some young helpless individuals with hatred and rage towards the society, and when that pain, hatred, and rage become unbearable, they turn to the scriptures as the final resort, in a pursuit to find absolution, guided by the psychopathic, misogynistic, genocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent, fundamentalist preachers.
Abhijit Naskar
Every true scientist is a philosopher, but not every philosopher is a scientist.
Abhijit Naskar
Scientific understanding of nature, doesn't make a person religious or atheist. I​t makes a person liberated of all labels. Moreover it makes a person kind and understanding.
Abhijit Naskar
All men either consciously or subconsciously crave for authority over their environment, especially over their peers in the society, male and female alike. Women on the other hand, crave for intimacy especially from their female peers in the society. Colloquially this is what you call “gossiping”.
Abhijit Naskar
The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist as half empty. What I see is water that can save someone's life.
Abhijit Naskar
One who does not believe in the self is an atheist. If you believe in yourself, then you are the most religious person on earth.
Abhijit Naskar
In the pursuit of breaking free from all the shackles of man-made bondages, science is the most effective tool we have till this date.
Abhijit Naskar
There is no such thing as reincarnation, but only similar incarnation.
Abhijit Naskar
Real science begins with curiosity and madness.
Abhijit Naskar
To me, the rainbow was a profoundly hopeful symbol, separating the the white light of appearances into its multiple spectrum and revealing a hidden dimension. It reminded me of my belief that it was the mission of science to pierce through the layers of everyday reality and penetrate to the truth.
Candace B. Pert
Abhijit Naskar is a self-trained scientist and thinker who discovers the paradigm shifting phenomena of the human mind.
Michael A. Persinger
It’s usually obvious when you’re talking to somebody a level above you, because they see lots of things instantly when those things take considerable work for you to figure out. These are good people to learn from, because they remember what it’s like to struggle in the place where you’re struggling, but the things they do still make sense from your perspective (you just couldn’t do them yourself). Talking to somebody two or more levels above you is a different story. They’re barely speaking the same language, and it’s almost impossible to imagine that you could ever know what they know. You can still learn from them, if you don’t get discouraged, but the things they want to teach you seem really philosophical, and you don’t think they’ll help you—but for some reason, they do. Somebody three levels above is actually speaking a different language. They probably seem less impressive to you than the person two levels above, because most of what they’re thinking about is completely invisible to you. From where you are, it is not possible to imagine what they think about, or why. You might think you can, but this is only because they know how to tell entertaining stories. Any one of these stories probably contains enough wisdom to get you halfway to your next level if you put in enough time thinking about it. Getting organized can bring us all to the next level in our lives.
Daniel J. Levitin
I don’t do metaphysics. Neither do I have the luxury to talk about my beliefs.
Abhijit Naskar
Get rid of your useless ceremonials and be educated like your ancient ancestors – Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, Susruta and others. Make education your purpose of life and spread it among the masses.
Abhijit Naskar
It takes not a few centuries, or even millenniums, but millions of years for a subtle evolutionary change to become noticeable.
Abhijit Naskar
The perception of reality is something that is constructed by the human mind based on its own needs and knacks.
Abhijit Naskar
When the conscience runs pure and strong in the heart of thinking humanity, there is not power in any fundamentalism to take hold of the human civilization and drag it back to the medieval days of barbarianism.
Abhijit Naskar
Human nature is a combination of modern conscience and ancient primitiveness. As the creation of the human mind in a state of transcendence, all scriptures are also a fusion of human conscience and gruesome primitiveness.
Abhijit Naskar
The human mind has a primordial affinity towards ideas of miracles and mysticism, especially, in times of weakness.
Abhijit Naskar
By nature, that mind is easily fooled by supernatural mysticism. It is extremely gullible. And no matter how much we the civilized human beings advance in the fields of modern sciences, there is always a part of us, that tries to allure us with magical nonsense, because that nonsense has been with us since the birth of humanity.
Abhijit Naskar
Now you know that the fascinating phenomenon of love has nothing to do with the supernatural entity known as Cupid, but everything to do with neurochemistry. Likewise, divinity is a cerebral creation, not a supernatural one. And it has been long since thinking humanity has learnt that love is a majestic creation of the brain, yet that knowledge hasn’t made love be deemed any less glorious. Then why should it threaten the religious believer to learn that divinity as well is a natural creation of the brain!
Abhijit Naskar
It has been long since thinking humanity has learnt that love is a majestic creation of the brain, yet that knowledge hasn’t made love be deemed any less glorious. Then why should it threaten the religious believer to learn that divinity as well is a natural creation of the brain!
Abhijit Naskar
Christ’s public life extended only over three years, and for this he had been silently training his mind for around thirty years. For years he had been breaking all the sociologically imposed ties of religious fundamentalism. For years he had been working in solitude to become liberated from the manacles of dogmatic bondage. And it is in the solitude that legends are born, and idiots are born in packs.
Abhijit Naskar
All these stories of Janamsakhi were like an artistic instrument that was yielded more to spread Nanak’s spiritual sovereignty as a mystical prophet than as an effective teacher in flesh and blood. In the midst of ignorance and mystical craving, they provided a simple method to guide people, or rather allure them to a newly formed religious path by sermonizing through stories of mystical non-sense.
Abhijit Naskar
All religions are mere echoes of this one great religion of Humanism.
Abhijit Naskar
We scientists perceive it as the Truth that will give us absolute understanding of the universe – which is impossible at the moment for a young species like us. On the other hand, the mystics perceive the Ultimate Truth, to be the attainment of Absolute Divinity, which all the religious giants experienced. But this attainment, is nowhere near the actual Ultimate Truth – it is only a subjective experience of the mind, evoked by specific internal and external stimuli.
Abhijit Naskar
Nanak’s encounter of God and God’s court was in fact a profound hallucinatory Near-Death Experience caused by drowning that strengthened his pre-conceived notion of a rational, compassionate and unorthodox society.
Abhijit Naskar
The human has not one but two births – first, when a person is born from the mother’s womb, and second, when that person rises from the socio-culturally imposed cocoon of prejudices and ignorance.
Abhijit Naskar
Mysticism and supernaturalism are the descendants of ignorance and fear.
Abhijit Naskar
In the society of thinking humanity, the natural law of trust should be - In I, I trust.
Abhijit Naskar
Truth, independent of the Self, is irrelevant to the biological existence of human life.
Abhijit Naskar
Every single phenomenon in the world, has a physical explanation underneath it. Finding the explanation depends on how far you are willing to go.
Abhijit Naskar
The salvation of the species, lies in knowing the Self – it lies in contributing to the wellbeing of the Selves of others.
Abhijit Naskar
The mystical non-sense of afterlife indeed gives solace to the mind in times of weakness, but why should the mind let its weakness be the fuel for primitiveness in the first place!
Abhijit Naskar
There is nothing ideal in Nature, because it was not created by some sort of ideal Almighty Being with perfect peerless craftsmanship. Nature as it is, has evolved through millions of years out of the biological drive for survival.
Abhijit Naskar
Brutality goes hand in hand with orthodoxy, be it Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Atheistic or any other.
Abhijit Naskar
The sacred texts of human history from all over the world, can never be perceived by the rational mind as texts of historical accuracy. They can only be a glaring representation of the traditions and ideals of the people. Now, it is up to the rational mind, to analyze those texts and thereafter consume the good elements from them, while discarding the rest.
Abhijit Naskar
Changing the spelling of one's name to ensure success, performing rituals for good luck, wearing colored gem stones for success in business – all these fall into the same category of psychological reinforcement. Hence, emerged the blood-sucking professions of astrology, palmistry, vastushastra, numerology etc. The very existence of these fraudulent professions is predicated on the fear and anxiety of vulnerable masses. Thus, a person’s superstitious beliefs become the tool of exploitation in the hands of ruthless fraudsters.
Abhijit Naskar
It is all about the trade of ignorance. And India is such a bronze-age nation that is filled with these trades (astrology, palm reading, vastushashtra and others).
Abhijit Naskar
Common people tend to term any kind of bizarre phenomenon as “paranormal” or “supernatural”. They often exaggerate it as the work of the Gods. Behind this belief is nothing but primitive ignorance. Social progress means that people must (a necessity, not a luxury) align their beliefs and behavior to new knowledge and understanding of nature.
Abhijit Naskar
Neuroscientists rarely have to grapple with the issue of presentism versus existentialism. But in practice, neuroscientists are implicitly presentists. They view the past, present, and future as fundamentally distinct, as the brain makes decisions in the present, based on the memories of the past, to enhance our well being in the future. But despite its intuitive appeal, presentism is the underdog theory in physics and philosophy.
Dean Buonomano