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âs words, âwider than the skyââ (p. 1). He also writes: âThe human brain has up to 100 billion nerve cells, or neuronsâ¦Each neuron can form thousands of links, giving a typical brain 100 trillion synapsesâ (p. 2). Grayling (1997) writes: âIt was a long time before patient observation and scientific method together began to unearth the real mystery: of how a kilogram of pale matter with the consistency of a soft-boiled egg, hidden in a tough casing of bone and without any internal moving parts, can perform all the miracles of consciousness with whichâas their subjectâwe are otherwise so familiarâ (p. vi). Nadis (2001) describes the connections between the brainâs neurons as âan amazingly complex wiring scheme, with more connections than stars in our galaxy, taking shape in an organism that started as a single cellâ (p. 4). Wakker and Richter (2004, p. 30) estimate that âour galaxy contains about 100 billions stars.â Derrington (2000) writes: âAccording to one estimate, every cubic millimeter of the brainâs cerebral cortex contains over two miles of connecting neural âwireââ (p. 2).

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P. 127: IMAGES IN BRAIN

Damasio (1999a) writes: âQuite candidly, this first problem of consciousness is the problem of how we get a âmovie-in-the-brain,â provided we realize that in this rough metaphor the movie has as many sensory tracks as our nervous system has sensory portalsâsight, sound, taste, olfaction, touch, inner senses, and so on. From the perspective of neurobiology, solving this first problem consists of discovering how the brain makes neural patterns in its nerve-cell circuits and manages to turn those neural patterns into the explicit mental patterns which constitute the highest level of biological phenomenon, which I like to call imagesâ (p. 9).

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P. 127: BILINGUAL BRAINS

See Kim et. al. (1997) and Restak (2001, p. 45).

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P. 127: MANY DIFFERENT BRAIN AREAS ARE USED

Blakeslee (2003) writes: âThe human cortex, where intelligence lies, is simply a lot bigger than that of other creatures given the human bodyâs size. But the size of the body is not everything. One important feature of more complex brains is that they are rich in circuitsâlinked cells from various parts of the brain that become active at the same time. Imagine a Christmas tree with millions of lights, each representing a cell group. The thought of dogs would activate a small set of lights. Thinking about a sunset would activate a whole new set of lights with no overlap. Once a thought is complete, all the lights or neurons fall silent, waiting to be called into play in different combinations when new thoughts ariseâ (p. 7).

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P. 128: LIMITS OF BRAIN IMAGING

Stix (2003) writes: âPictures abound showing yellow and orange splotches against a background of gray matterâa snapshot of where the lightbulb goes on when you move a finger, feel sad, or add two and two. These pictures reveal which areas receive increased oxygen-rich blood flow. But despite pretensions to latter-day phrenology, they remain an abstraction, an imperfect bridge from brain to mindâ (p. 26).

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P. 128: âEMOTIONALâ BRAIN

See LeDoux (1996), in particular, for a description of the thalamus and amygdala working together to provide a âquick and dirty transmissionâ (p. 166) that allows the brain to start to respond to potential dangers such as a snake on a path.

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P. 129: NEURAL TAPE DELAY

Ingram (2000) describes an experiment involving MRI machines and people who were asked to recognize objects: âBrain activity peaked when the object was recognized and not surprisingly, that peak was reached earlier with objects that had been seen recently. But what was really strange was that peopleâs brains seemed to know when an object had been seen recently before the people themselves knew. The MRI recorded heightened brain activity in response to a familiar object before the person actually said, âI recognize that object; itâs a computer mouse.â This experiment shows that there is much going on in our brains that we are unaware of. It also confirms what other scientists have claimed in other contexts: