"I prefer ambiguity, mystery and awe to bottom-line explanations. I’m personally offended by fundamentalist and reductionist beliefs, be they religious or unjustified scientific pronouncements. I recognize and often rejoice in the absurdity of the human condition, and wouldn’t want it any other way. If scientists arrived at a final theory of everything, I would try not to read it."
"The individual human is composed of ca. 6 x 1013 cells, but there is no single cell where intelligence resides. Those patterns of behavior that would commonly be described as intelligence exist because of the co-operative interdependence of a great mass of rather identical units (cells) organized into distinct castes of behavior (tissue). The capacity for intelligent behavior does not “emerge” from this mass. It is selected for its advantageous properties, as a unit whole, and is evolved throughout the lineage of trials, phylogenetically. Intelligence is not the end-product of evolution, nor is it a distinct process. The evolution of appropriate system behavior permeates every aspect of the process of evolution."
"Modern technological man went one step further, however, and created a new and oft-times oppressive demand on the brain to do intellectual work for its own sake, and it is the capacity to do this work that the IQ test measures. With this new human intelligence, man could no longer be content to survive, reproduce, or merely be happy; he must acheive."
"The epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the planet. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change."
“Most painful for some (and leading cause of mid-life crises) is the realization that every day your potential is shrinking. The more you live, the more you’re locked into that life. One day you look at yourself and say “well, this is it. This is all I’ll achieve and be this life.” You can either come to terms with it in a healthy way or let it depress you, but it’s a very different feeling from the sheer potential you feel when young. Sure, when you were young you knew on some level that your wildest dreams are a long shot, but they COULD happen. That hope dies bit by bit as you age.
It’s also depressing that the people being portrayed in TV, movies, etc as active and interesting become younger than you. When you were younger, it’s easy to look at a character in fiction and aspire to be like them in the future. When you’re older, you realize you’ll never be that because it’s already behind you.
Sorry about the rambling, old age does that to you too”
