Perception is the association of an idea with a stimulus, while thought is the association of an idea with another idea.

Because connections change more slowly than spiking patterns, they are less suited to active manipulation of information.

The best way of making humans effective is to minimize the time they waste on trivial tasks.

every stream has a bed.

This tradeoff has been named the “stability–plasticity dilemma”

If two neurons are repeatedly activated simultaneously, then the connections between them are strengthened in both directions.

The tradeoff between stability and plasticity may also explain why the brain uses two information stores. Like information in RAM, patterns of spiking change quickly and are suited to active manipulation of information during perception and thought. Because they are easily disturbed by new perceptions and thoughts, patterns of spiking are useful

a feeling of difficulty often accompanies the experience of memory, while perception usually feels effortless.

In a nutshell, neuroscience has been saddled with a dilemma: The ideas of phrenology can be empirically tested but are simplistic. Connectionism is far more sophisticated, but its ideas cannot be evaluated experimentally.