I think one of the both liberating and terrifying prospects from synthetic biology for example is that you are going to have all of these do it yourself biosynthetic labs where people are going to be playing with the software of life. We are going to have a new generation of artists that are going to be playing with genomes the way that Blake and Byron used to play with poetry. And when genomes are the new canvas for the artist, we might be able to radically upgrade the human species and the software of the biology of the human species.

Death is not necessarily what gives meaning to life LIFE gives meaning to life, and what we do with life, which is to create knowledge like music, art, science To this end, I believe intelligent life might be evolution's secret weapon: the ultimate hack that might help us transcend entropy.

As technology continues to increase our possibilities, what we're seeing is a shrinking of the lag time between what we dream about and what we create.

I do NOT accept the ephemeral nature of this moment. I'm going to extend it FOREVER! Or at least I'm going to try.

Imagination allows us to conceive of delightful future possibilities, pick the most amazing one, and pull the present forward to meet it.

To be inspired is the ultimate antidote to existential despair.

There's always going to be the circumstances you can't plan for. There's always the unexpected relevance and the serendipity.