“There probably is no more important quest in all science than the attempt to understand those very particular events in evolution by which brains worked out that special trick that has enabled them to add to the cosmic scheme of things: color, sound, pain, pleasure, and all the other facets of mental experience.”

— Roger Wolcott Sperry

"Evolution of the Human Brain" (1964), p. 3

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Roger Wolcott Sperry 32

American neuroscientist 1913–1994

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“The arrangement of the whole work is probably different… from any other… the extent of the subjects… rendered it necessary to preserve a… methodical and uniform system; and it is presumed, that this arrangement will be… of some value, especially in a work calculated to serve as a key, by means of which, access may be obtained to all the widely scattered treasures of science; and which will enable those… desirous of extending their researches in any particular department, to obtain expeditiously all the information that books can afford them.”

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“These rules will enable you to have a free and sound judgment; since good judgment is born of clear understanding, and a clear understanding comes of reasons derived from sound rules, and sound rules are the issue of sound experience — the common mother of all the sciences and arts. Hence, bearing in mind the precepts of my rules, you will be able, merely by your amended judgment, to criticise and recognise every thing that is out of proportion in a work, whether in the perspective or in the figures or any thing else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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“The disappearance of nations would impoverish us no less than if all peoples were made alike, with one character, one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, they are its generalized personalities: the smallest of them has its own particular colors, and embodies a particular facet of God's design.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

“In this work I have attempted to treat economy as a calculus of pleasure and pain, and have sketched out, almost irrespective of previous opinions, the form which the science, as it seems to me, must ultimately take.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

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“The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity.”

John C. Eccles book How the Self Controls Its Brain

He here refers to his proposal in "A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex" (1990); published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B 240, p. 433 - 451
How the Self Controls Its Brain (1994)
Context: The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity. Each of these mental units is reciprocally linked in some unitary manner to a dendron … Appropriately we name these proposed mental units 'psychons.' Psychons are not perceptual paths to experiences. They are the experiences in all their diversity and uniqueness. There could be millions of psychons each linked uniquely to the millions of dendrons. It is hypothesized that it is the very nature of psychons to link together in providing a unified experience.

“I'm very proud of this whole thing - the new single and album. I was given more time to work on it, so I've been able to add little touches. There's been more time to think and listen. All the songs are very special and I'm very, very satisfied with it.”

Basshunter (1984) Swedish singer, record producer and DJ

Bass Generation

“Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Variant: Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

“Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

“The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes — more important than gold or houses or lands — more important than art or science — more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike he would have made us alike. Why did he not do so? Why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a Catholic? And why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever — why the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan — if he wanted us all to believe alike?
After all, maybe Nature is good enough and grand enough and broad enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. Maybe, after all, it would not be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say.
The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes — more important than gold or houses or lands — more important than art or science — more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.

“While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”

Albert A. Michelson (1852–1931) American physicist

1894, dedication of Ryerson Physical Laboratory, quoted in Annual Register 1896, p. 159 https://books.google.com/books?id=HysXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA159.
Variants of this quote have been misattributed to Lord Kelvin since the 1980s, though there is no evidence that he said anything of the sort. The identity of the unnamed "eminent physicist" is unknown.

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Roger Wolcott Sperry 32

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