People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important w… - Jonah Lehrer

...new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time.

"the problem with statistics is that they
don't activate our moral emotions. The depressing numbers leave
us cold: our minds can't comprehend suffering on such a massive
scale. This is why we are riveted when one child falls down a
well but turn a blind eye to the millions of people who die every
year for lack of clean water. And why we donate thousands of
dollars to help a single African war orphan featured on the cover
of a magazine but ignore widespread genocides in Rwanda and
Darfur. As Mother Teresa put it, "If I look at the mass, I will
never act. If I look at the one, I will

Unless you experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong, your brain will never revise its models. Before your neurons can succeed, they must repeatedly fail. There are no shortcuts for this painstaking process.