Selections from Rudolfo Llinas Talk at UT

(click photo to link to source)

"There is no such thing as mind."

"The brain has but one function: to move intelligently, or intelligent motricity." (very close paraphrase of a central thesis)

"Life, a property of matter is, as are giraffes, inevitable." (direct quote from slide)

"We are not descended from monkeys, we are monkeys." (close to direct quote)

"Cells have personality!" Every individual neuron, as I understand it from his presentation, has a unique way of representing the external world. Cognition works by consensus. All of these individual, quirky representations are summed up and then, with so much variation, the only thing they have in common: that's the truth. Hence, a system made up of unreliable elements is much more reliable than a system made of of reliable elements. (Because if all the elements worked in the same way, 'reliably', then they could all be wrong in the same way.)

"There is no higher and lower!" The brain is a circuit. The thalamus is connected to the cortex, and then the cortex connects back to the thalamus (e.g., in vision). (Note: the cortex does not connect to the "soul".)

Consciousness is synchrony of thalamus & cortex. One provides information (content), the other provides context. When content is put into context, we have attention (consciousness).

Even pigeons recognize themselves in the mirror. All animals are self-aware. Dogs don't recognize themselves in mirrors, but they are not visual, rather they are olfactory. Unlike us, they can mark a fire-hydrant with their scent and recognize themselves there afterwards.

"It's beautiful!" (He used that word a lot. Not specifically of the cephalopod below, although he could have!)


He showed a video of a cephalopod hiding. These are different versions I found on YouTube of exactly the same video:



And in slow motion:


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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis