TED.com, the official site of the TED conference, is one of my favorite websites on the entirety of the internet. The TED conference is a place where some of the greatest minds of the world come together to share their knowledge, thoughts and ideas, and through the magic of the internet, almost all of it is available to us for free. Completely non-profit. Originally aimed entirely toward Technology, Entertainment and Design, these days it’s more varied.

Some of my favorite TED talks are the ones that give you some insight into the human mind/brain. It’s such a complex thing that we may never fully understand it, but every little bit of knowledge that we have is endlessly fascinating. The one I watched today with neurologist Oliver Sacks discusses Charles Bonnet syndrome. Charles Bonnet syndrome describes the phenomenon experienced by roughly 10-15% of blind or visually impaired people in the world. They’re very complex, often confusing lucid, visual hallucinations.

Watch the video embedded above, and pay close attention to it. Consider some of the numbers thrown out, and some of the little details about the mind that Mr. Sacks gives us. The visual portions of our brain include hundreds of thousands of different, distinct cells or groups of cells with their own specialized purposes. I find that incredibly fascinating, and the fact that even one little cell misfiring could change our entire outlook on the world around us is both amazing and frightening.

I’ll probably be linking more of my favorite TED talks in the future, but this one in particular stood out to me today. A close second is Dan Pink on the science of motivation, since his topic is something I’ve been pretty passionate about the last couple of years myself.

Do any of you watch these talks? Do you have a favorite?