Michio Kaku Quotes

“Although consciousness is a patchwork of competing and often contradictory tendencies, the left brain ignores inconsistencies and papers over obvious gaps in order to give us a smooth sense of a single 'I'. In other words, the left brain is constantly making excuses, some of them harebrained and preposterous, to make sense of the world. It is constantly asking 'Why?' and dreaming up excuses even if the question has no answer.”

“Brain scans done by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis indicate that areas used to recall memories are the same as those involved in simulating the future. In particular, the link between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus lights up when a person is engaged in planning for the future and remembering the past.”

“Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, concludes: Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important — all the data indicate — for life success than your IQ or your grades.”

“For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.”

“Gossiping is essential for survival because the complex mechanics of social interactions are constantly changing, so we have to make sense of this ever-shifting social terrain. This is Level II consciousness at work. But once we hear a piece of gossip, we immediately run simulations to determine how this will affect our own standing in the community, which moves us to Level III consciousness. Thousands of years ago, in fact, gossip was the only way to obtain vital information about the tribe. One’s very life often depended on knowing the latest gossip.”

“In science fiction, telepaths often communicate across language barriers, since thoughts are considered to be universal. However, this might not be true. Emotions and feelings may well be nonverbal and universal, so that one could telepathically send them to anyone, but rational thinking is so closely tied to language that it is very unlikely that complex thoughts could be sent across language barriers. Words will still be sent telepathically in their original language.”

“Intelligence seems to be correlated with the complexity with which we can simulate future events.”

“It is remarkable that a gigantic, city-size computer is required to simulate a piece of human tissue that weighs three pounds, fits inside your skull, raises your body temperature by only a few degrees, uses twenty watts of power, and needs only a few hamburgers to keep it going.”

“It seems that the one characteristic most closely correlated with success in life, which has persisted over the decades, is the ability to delay gratification.”

“On the question of whether the robots will eventually take over, 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'.”

“Sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne once wrote: When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her?”

“Something as superfluous as 'play' is also an essential feature of our consciousness. If you ask children why they like to play, they will say: 'Because it's fun'. But that invites the next question: 'What is fun?'

Actually, when children play, they are often trying to reenact complex human interactions in simplified form. Human society is extremely sophisticated, much too involved for the developing brains of young children, so children run simplified simulations of adult society, playing games such as doctor, cops and robber, and school.

Each game is a model that allows children to experiment with a small segment of adult behavior and then run simulations into the future. Similarly, when adults engage in play, such as a game of poker, the brain constantly creates a model of what cards the various players possess, and then projects that model into the future, using previous data about people's personality, ability to bluff, etc. The key to games like chess, cards, and gambling is the ability to simulate the future. Animals, which live largely in the present, are not as good at games as humans are, especially if they involve planning. Infant mammals do engage in a form of play, but this is more for exercise, testing one another, practicing future battles, and establishing the coming social pecking order rather than simulating the future.”

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

“The brain weighs only three pounds, yet it is the most complex object in the solar system.”

“The results of these and other studies were eye-opening. The children who exhibited delayed gratification scored higher on almost every measure of success in life: higher-paying jobs, lower rates of drug addiction, higher test scores, higher educational attainment, better social integration, etc.”

“There is a saying among women scientists who attend highly specialized engineering universities, where the girl-to-guy ratio is decidedly in their favor: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

“To understand the precise point when the possible becomes the impossible, you have to appreciate and understand the laws of physics.”

“We have learned more about the brain in the last fifteen years than in all prior human history, and the mind, once considered out of reach, is finally assuming center stage.”

“Your cell phone today has more computer power than all of NASA when it put two men on the moon in 1969.”