Our ability to perceive the world around us seems so effortless that we tend to take it for granted.

The adage that fact is stranger than fiction seems to be especially true for the workings of the brain.

You can't just take an image and randomly distort it and call it art - although many people in La Jolla where I come from do precisely that.

It may well be our brains are wired up to be slightly more optimistic than they should be.

We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.

I was socially isolated as a kid. I had friends, but I wasn't very good at sports and that sort of thing so I became quite comfortable being by myself, exploring. The world was my private playground, and in it, I was supreme. Darwin, Faraday, Huxley and other great scientists were my companions.