One thing that I've been doing for a long time is to wake up really early. I try to get up around 4 or 5 in the morning, long before most of my lab members are up, which gives me some quiet time to really think without distraction. I think that's important.

I think the definition will change as we learn more, but my working definition of solving the brain is: one, we can model, maybe in a computer, the processes that generate things like thoughts and feelings, and two, we can understand how to cure brain disorders, like Alzheimer's and epilepsy. Those are my two driving goals. One is more human-condition oriented, and one more clinical.

Behavioral economics can explain some things, but it's hard to explain a lot of the underlying processes that generate these decisions, much less some of these unconscious things that we don't have a handle on at all.

Remember, when we're conscious of something, that state is quite often generated by unconscious processes that happen right before it.

Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.

These disorders - schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, depression, addiction - they not only steal our time to live, they change who we are.

A big part of my job is to remember failure, and reboot failure, when the timing is right.