What's obvious to you is obvious to you.

There is a neuron in your brain that will respond only to pictures of Jennifer Aniston - provided you have had prior visual exposure to the actress. That neuron does not respond to pictures of Bill Clinton or Halle Berry. Only Jennifer. I used the story to explain the almost ridiculous plasticity of the organ. There is no such thing as Jennifer Aniston in our evolutionary history - she was born in 1969, for heaven's sake - but we are flexible enough to devote an entire cell to her if we have previously encountered her in some fashion.

Change often involves loss, so change can be a risky experience.

Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.

Human learning is a very aggressive style in its native state. I am not sure why, though it is a very useful trait in an unstable, unpredictable living environment.

The ability to double our biomass - not by waiting several million years and growing to be the size of an elephant - but waiting a few hundred thousand years for neurons to sprout into our brains - ones capable of having us create emotional relationships with other members of our species. We thereby double our biomass not by getting bigger, but by creating an ally.

A factory worker at an assembly line, who can learn their job in 5 minutes, can get bored fairly easily, and disengage completely.