“In a curiously apt passage, G. K. Chesterton wrote: “You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature.… Do not go about … encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their three sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comes to a lamentable end.” But not all triangles are equilateral. Some substantial adjustment of the relative role of each component of the triune brain is well within our powers.”
“if I take the trouble of writing the dream down, when I awaken the next morning I can remember the dream perfectly well without referring to my notes. The same thing is true of, for example, remembering a telephone number. If I am told a number and merely think about it, I am likely to forget it or transpose some of the digits. If I repeat the numbers out loud or write them down, I can remember them quite well. This surely means that there is a part of our brain which remembers sounds and images, but not thoughts. I wonder if that sort of memory arose before we had very many thoughts—when it was important to remember the hiss of an attacking reptile or the shadow of a plummeting hawk, but not our own occasional philosophical reflections.”
“While ritual, emotion and reasoning are all significant aspects of human nature, the most nearly unique human characteristic is the ability to associate abstractly and to reason. Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts—a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the “humanities.” Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human. Mathematics is as much a “humanity” as poetry. Whales and elephants may be as “humane” as humans.”