Quotes About Adaptation

The goal for many amputees is no longer to reach a 'natural' level of ability but to exceed it, using whatever cutting-edge technology is available. As this new generation sees it, our tools are evolving faster than the human body, so why obey the limits of mere nature?

Change creates fear, and technology creates change. Sadly, most people don't behave very well when they are afraid.

The poster boy for our superabled future is Oscar Pistorius, an increasingly famous South African sprinter who happens to have had both of his legs amputated below the knee. Using upside down question mark-shaped carbon fiber sprinting prosthetics, called Cheetah blades, Mr. Pistorius can challenge the fastest sprinters in the world.

Through your actions here today—you have made humankind obsolete.

I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing. We're gonna be fine. Different, but fine. Because most people are good. Right?

The end of the world came and my job did not change.

We are a better species for having fought this war. CORMAC "BRIGHT BOY" WALLACE

The future is coming faster than most people realize. —MICHAEL CRICHTON

La gente debería saber que al comienzo el enemigo tenía la forma de objetos cotidianos: coches, edificios, teléfonos. Luego, cuando empezaron a diseñarse a sí mismos, los robots resultaban familiares pero al mismo tiempo deformes, como personas y animales de otro universo creados por otro dios.

The underlying logic of a living thing is its own survival.

It's hard to wipe your eyes when you have whirring buzzsaws for hands.

How much change can a person absorb before everything loses meaning Living for its own sake isn't life. People need meaning as much as they need air.

Technology changes, but people stay the same.

Even the word computer is outdated now that most people don't use their computer to compute anything at all—rather, it has become just like that big disorganized drawer everyone has in their kitchen, what in my family we called the junk drawer.

Before traveling east, start advancing your body clock as many days before your trip as the number of time zones you'll be crossing. Get into sunlight early in the day, or use a sunlight lamp. Once you're on the plane eastbound, wear eyeshades to cover your eyes two hours or so before sunset in your destination city, to acclimate yourself to the new "dark" time.

We are always in a perpetual state of being created and creating ourselves. (p. 221)

if we use how we were taught yesterday to teach our children today, we are not preparing them well for tomorrow.

one of the surprises that has shaken the very foundations of neuroscience is the discovery that the brain is actually "plastic," or moldable. This means that the brain physically changes throughout the course of our lives, not just in childhood, as we had previously assumed. What molds our brain? Experience. Even into old age, our experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain.

As scientists put it, the brain is plastic, or moldable. Yes, the actual physical architecture of the brain changes based on what happens to us.

between the two. Harmony emerges from integration. Chaos and rigidity arise when integration is blocked.

Physically and genetically, our brains may not have evolved much in the last forty thousand years—but our minds have. A baby born today would be much the same as a baby born tens of thousands of years ago. But if we were able to compare the intricate neural structure of an adult brain in today's modern society with that of an adult brain from forty thousand years ago, we'd find huge differences.

the changes during adolescence are not something to just get through; they are qualities we actually need to hold on to in order to live a full and meaningful life in adulthood.

experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain.

Mindfulness exercises produce literal changes in the brain's connections, significantly affecting how well a person interacts with other people and adapts to difficult situations.