QUOTES

161 " Recent brain scans have shed light on how the brain simulates the future. These simulation are done mainly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain, using memories of the past. On one hand, simulations of the future may produce outcomes that are desirable and pleasurable, in which case the pleasure centers of the brain light up (in the nucleus accumbens and the hypothalamus). On the other hand, these outcomes may also have a downside to them, so the orbitofrontal cortex kicks in to warn us of possible dancers. There is a struggle, then, between different parts of the brain concerning the future, which may have desirable and undesirable outcomes. Ultimately it is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that mediates between these and makes the final decisions. (Some neurologists have pointed out that this struggle resembles, in a crude way, the dynamics between Freud's ego, id, and superego.) "

― , The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

163 " But on the question of whether the robots will eventually take over, he {Rodney A. Brooks} says that this will probably not happen, for a variety of reasons. First, no one is going to accidentally build a robot that wants to rule the world. He says that creating a robot that can suddenly take over is like someone accidentally building a 747 jetliner. Plus, there will be plenty of time to stop this from happening. Before someone builds a "super-bad robot," someone has to build a "mildly bad robot," and before that a "not-so-bad robot. "

― , The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

165 " Physicists often quote from T. H. White's epic novel The Once and Future King , where a society of ants declares, 'Everything not forbidden is compulsory.' In other words, if there isn't a basic principle of physics forbidding time travel, then time travel is necessarily a physical possibility. (The reason for this is the uncertainty principle. Unless something is forbidden, quantum effects and fluctuations will eventually make it possible if we wait long enough. Thus, unless there is a law forbidding it, it will eventually occur.) "

― , Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos

167 " Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics, before being tragically struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 33... Working in total isolation from the main currents of his field, he was able to rederive 100 years’ worth of Western mathematics on his own. The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics. "

― , Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

169 " When you listen to the beautiful sounds of stereo music, remember that you are listening to the rhythms of trillions of electrons obeying this and other bizarre laws of quantum mechanics.

But if quantum mechanics were incorrect, then all of electronics including television sets, computers, radios, stereo, and so on, would cease to function. (In fact, if quantum theory were incorrect, the atoms in our bodies would collapse, and we would instantly disintegrate. According to Maxwell's equations, the electrons spinning in an atom should lose their energy within a microsecond and plunge into the nucleus. This sudden collapse is prevented by quantum theory. Thus the fact that we exist is living proof of the correctness of quantum mechanics.)

This also means that there is a finite, calculable probability that "impossible" events will occur. For example, I can calculate the probability that I will unexpectedly disappear and tunnel through the earth and reappear in Hawaii. (The time we would have to wait for such an event to occur, it should be pointed out, is longer than the lifetime of the universe. So we cannot use quantum mechanics to tunnel to vacation spots around the world.) "

― , Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

171 " My own emotional feeling is that life has a purpose—ultimately,
I’d guess that the purpose it has is the purpose that we’ve given it and not a purpose that came out of any cosmic design. "

― , Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos

173 " An even more advanced form of uploading your mind into a computer was envisioned by computer scientist Hans Moravec. When I interviewed him, he claimed that his method of uploading the human mind could even be done without losing consciousness.

First you would be placed on a hospital gurney, next to a robot. Then a surgeon would take individual neurons from your brain and create a duplicate of these neurons (made of transistors) inside the robot. A cable would connect these transistorized neurons to your brain. As time goes by, more and more neurons are removed from your brain and duplicated in the robot. Because your brain is connected to the robot brain, you are fully conscious even as more and more neurons are replaced by transistors. Eventually, without losing consciousness, your entire brain and all its neurons are replaced by transistors. Once all one hundred billion neurons have been duplicated, the connection between you abd the artificial brain is finally cut. When you gaze back at the stretcher, you see your body, lacking its brain, while your consciousness now exists inside a robot. "

― , The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond Earth

175 " Future Of Humanity - Planetary Civilization

In mythology, the gods lived in the divine splendor of heaven, far above the insignificant affairs of mere mortals.

The Greek gods frolicked in the heavenly domain of Mount Olympus, while the Norse gods who fought for honor and eternal glory would feast in the hallowed halls of Valhalla with the spirits of fallen warriors. But if our destiny is to attain the power of the gods by the end of the century, what will our civilization look like in 2100? Where is all this technological innovation taking our civilization?

All the technological revolutions described here are leading to a single point: the creation of a planetary civilization.

This transition is perhaps the greatest in human history. In fact, the people living today are the most important ever to walk the surface of the planet, since they will determine whether we attain this goal or descend into chaos.
Perhaps 5,000 generations of humans have walked the surface of the earth since we first emerged in Africa about 100,000 years ago, and of them, the ones living in this century will ultimately determine our fate.
Unless there is a natural catastrophe or some calamitous act of folly, it is inevitable that we will enter this phase of our collective history. We can see this most clearly by analyzing the history of energy. "

― , Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

177 " One day , would it be possible to walk through walls ? To build starships than can travel faster than the speed of life? TO READ OTHER PEOPLE'S MIND ?
To become INVISIBLE ? To move object with the power of our minds? To transport our bodies instantly through outer space??

Since I was a child , I've always been fascinated by these questions. "

― , Physics of the Impossible

179 " Newton had invented the calculus, which was expressed in the language of "differential equations," which describe how objects smoothly undergo infinitesimal changes in space and time. The motion of ocean waves, fluids, gases, and cannon balls could all be expressed in the language of differential equations. Maxwell set out with a clear goal, to express the revolutionary findings of Faraday and his force fields through precise differential equations.

Maxwell began with Faraday's discovery that electric fields could turn into magnetic fields and vice versa. He took Faraday's depictions of force fields and rewrote them in the precise language of differential equations, producing one of the most important series of equations in modern science. They are a series of eight fierce-looking differential equations. Every physicist and engineer in the world has to sweat over them when mastering electromagnetism in graduate school.

Next, Maxwell asked himself the fateful question: if magnetic fields can turn into electric fields and vice versa, what happens if they are constantly turning into each other in a never-ending pattern? Maxwell found that these electric-magnetic fields would create a wave, much like an ocean wave. To his astonishment, he calculated the speed of these waves and found it to be the speed of light! In 1864, upon discovering this fact, he wrote prophetically: "This velocity is so nearly that of light that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself...is an electromagnetic disturbance. "

― , Physics of the Impossible