Changed: capacity for concentration and style of thinking
"Jet Ski" thinking pattern: "zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski" p. 34 #
Push & Pull
Computation = thought
Plasticity #
"tripping lightly from link to link to link" p. 32
"His thinking...has taken on a 'staccato' quality', reflecting the way he scans short passages of text from many sources online" (p. 36).
"The benefits they get from using the Net make up for the loss of their ability to sit still and turn the pages of a book or magazine" (p. 37).
Sacrifice: "All three know they've sacrificed something important, but they wouldn't go back to the way things used to be" (p. 38).
Willingness to wait (books) p. 47
vs. "upgrade cycle" p. 51
Technological advances mark turning points in history p. 126
"Evolution has given us a brain that can literally change its mind - over and over again" p. 90.
Cherry-pick ideas (p. 38) & books are superfluous (p. 37)
Technological Determinism vs. Instrumentalism p. 122-124
"The conflict...will never be resolved. It involves, after all, two radically different views of nature and destiny of humankind. The debate is as much about faith as it is about reason."
The clock led to the scientific man, in a way (p. 118)
"Intellectual Technologies" fourth category of technology p. 119
"The tools we use to write, read, and otherwise manipulate information work on our minds even as we work with them [a la Nietzsche]" p. 120.
"Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts" (Nietzsche, p. 61).
"Plastic does not necessarily mean elastic" p. 97
"Massively plastic" (Merzenich, p. 78)
Hebb's rule: "Cells that fire together wire together" p. 80
Tabula rasa (Locke) vs. templates (Kant).
Reshaping vs. specification p. 82
The normal ongoing state of the nervous system throughout the life span [is] plasticity," (Pascual-Leone, p. 89)
For all its benefits, also drawbacks p. 96
"As neuroscientists have discovered, the brain - and the mind to which it gives rise - is forever a work in progress." p. 105