Dinesh's photos with the keyword: David Eagleman

Leonardo da Vinci was also a master of scouting between the close and the far. As an expert engineer he tackled real-world problems, some that were immediately relevant and some that qualified as science fiction in his day. At the applicable end, he knew that the locks on the waterways in Milan were hard to operate and prone to flooding. So he threw himself at the problem and generated a novel solution: he replaced the vertically - dropping gate with a hinged double-door that opened horizontally and provided a more watertight seal. It was a modest change that proved of lasting value. His basic design is still in use. ~ Page 167 . . . Leonardo da Vinci would persistently distrust his first solution to any problem -- suspicious that it was the result of overlearned routine -- and dig around for something better. He always worked to derail himself from his path of least resistance, to discover what else was hidden in the richness of his neural networks ~ Page 184

Big data can lead to a form of big blending. When you type a paragraph into Google Translate, the computer does not try to understand you. Instead, it compares what you have written with a massive database of existing human translations and searches, word-by-word and phase-by-phase, for the closest match. As a result, the software doesn't need a dictionary: translation becomes a matter of statistics. Indifferent to what you are saying, it views your text as a patchwork of other people's writing. In Renaissance polyphony, you can hear the blend of texts; in Google Translate, it occurs behind scenes. ~ Page 99 ("Runaway Species")

There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing. Consider the simple act of changing lanes while driving a car. Try this: close your eyes, grip an imaginary steering wheel, and go through the motions of a lane change. Imagine that you are driving in the left lane and you would like to move over to the right lane. Before reading on, put down the book and try it. I’ll give you 100 points if you can do it correctly. It’s a fairly easy task, right? I’m guessing that you held the steering wheel straight, then banked it over to the right for a moment, and then straightened it out again. No problem. Like almost everyone else, you got it completely wrong. The motion of turning the wheel rightward for a bit, then straightening it out again would steer you off the road: you just piloted a course from the left lane onto the sidewalk. The correction motion of changing lanes is banking the wheel to the right, and back to the left side, and only then straightening out. Don’t believe it? Verify it for yourself when you’re next in the car. It’s such a simple motor task that you have no problem accomplishing it in your daily driving. But when forced to access it consciously, you’re flummoxed. ~ Page 55 Chapter: Mind: The Gap - INCOGNITO Author - David Eagleman