Even two of humanity's most intimate possessions - a sense of self and a body image - are fluid, highly modifiable creations of the brain's mischievous deployment of electricity and a handful of chemicals. They both can change or be changed on less than a second's notice.
Interpretation
Our sense of self and body image are not fixed; they can change rapidly due to our brain's complex processes.
This quote by Miguel Nicolelis emphasizes the idea that our identity and perception of ourselves are not static. Instead, they are dynamic and influenced by neurological activity, suggesting that our understanding of who we are and how we perceive our bodies can shift in an instant, highlighting the malleability of human experience and self-perception.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about mental health to emphasize the fluid nature of identity.
It's the first time an exoskeleton has been controlled by brain activity and offered feedback to the patients. Doing a demonstration in a stadium is something very much outside our routine in robotics. It's never been done before.
We want to galvanize people's imaginations. With enough political will and investment, we could make wheelchairs obsolete.
We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net. In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.
With its billions of interconnected neurons, whose interactions change from millisecond to millisecond, the human brain is an archetypal complex system.
Narrative Collapse is what happens when we no longer have time in which to tell a story. Remote controls and DVRs give us the ability to break down narratives - particularly the more abusive ones. This is a great thing for escaping the 'ends-justify-the-means' traps of 20th-century wars and religions, but it can also make it hard to convey values.
If there's good, strong evidence from science that such and such is the case and this is contrary to Buddhism, then we will change.
The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.
At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right
It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told.
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