Wisdom in fragments

When it comes to claims like 'pets alleviate depression,' there's really no solid evidence. In fact, the findings so far are pretty ambiguous. And—I don't really want to tell you this—but in one study that found no significant overall effect, cat owners were actually more depressed than the control group.

Canadian science communicator and former host of Daily Planet

We're the only species on Earth that keeps pets, and that alone suggests there must be a good reason for it. It's hard to even imagine a world without pets. But we do need to be aware of all these issues—from abandoning animals to breeding them to extremes simply because they look 'cool' or different.

Canadian science communicator and former host of Daily Planet

Any book about pets is really a book about humans. It's not about the pets themselves. I'm always amused when friends send me pictures of their dog or cat, because I'm tempted to write back and say, 'If you're not in the picture, it's a misrepresentation of what's going on.'

Canadian science communicator and former host of Daily Planet

At the level of individuals, teams, or even firms, knowledge grows and then saturates. It has a finite 'carrying capacity.' What is interesting is that while these individual units are finite, society at large looks infinite because of changes in the teams—the incumbents—that perform best.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

Knowledge diffusion mediated by migrants tends to be intergenerational. When German chemists were expelled and moved to the United States, the people who really adopted their ideas and technology were from the next generation.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

Materials move much more easily than knowledge. But when people mistakenly believe that the material is the binding constraint, they tend to come up with these bone-headed development strategies. Silicon Valley didn't specialize in silicon transistors because there was a lot of sand nearby.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

We have to get out of this 'tax to spend' mentality and think about using resources to create investment funds that support local businesses, while also expecting to get something back as those businesses appreciate. Those are very different mentalities.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

There is an honest trade-off between labour market protection and learning. If you have an extremely static labour market—like the high protection laws in France or Spain—you get stability, but you sacrifice learning. There is less transfer of knowledge because there is less reallocation of people to tasks or teams.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

I think both examples share one glaring mistake. They overlook the fact that even though knowledge diffuses, it is also agglomerative—it tends to concentrate. When it comes to the growth of knowledge, you need to double down on the capacities you already have; you want to build on cities that possess a foundation.

Director of MIT Media Lab; expert in network science and complexity

Our vision is something we call 'SETI of the mind.' The goal is to treat the DMT space and other altered states as novel domains to be explored, much in the same way we treat outer space. It is a completely new frontier inhabited by beings that we treat as potential intelligences with whom we can establish a two-way relationship.

Anyone who takes the DMT space seriously is forced to live a kind of parallel life. You slip back into 'normal life mode' and almost have to ignore the implications of what you saw. It shows you that this tawdry, flimsy domain we think is foundational to reality is actually nothing more than a theatre screen.

We assumed matter was fundamental when we probably should have prioritised consciousness. If we viewed consciousness as the prima materia of reality itself, I think we'd know a lot more about these intelligences and hidden agents than we do today, had we not gone down that strict materialist path all those years ago.

The world we see is always constructed by our brain. We never have direct access to the world in itself; we only have access to the model our brain is constructing. It works as a sort of 'best guess.' The brain isn't trying to find the absolute truth or create a perfect replica of the outside world's structure. It's trying to find a model that works—one that is adaptive and allows you to function.

DMT forces you to confront the fact that we know almost nothing about the true nature of reality. Whatever image you have of what's real or possible is obliterated in an instant. You're faced with a world that isn't just strange, but so utterly incomprehensible that it transcends imagination. It's a place that shouldn't exist within our consensus reality, yet there it is—undeniable.

Music can help us heal and achieve therapeutic outcomes by tapping into various neurochemical circuits that influence mood and behaviour. Ours was the first lab to show that listening to music releases the brain's natural pain relievers—opioids. Relaxing music can modulate prolactin, a soothing, tranquilizing hormone. Music also releases dopamine which helps us to focus and motivates us to stay on task.

Neuroscientist & author of "This Is Your Brain on Music

We tend to remember the things in life that deliver the biggest emotional wallop. Music ties into memory in two ways. First, music itself can be tremendously impactful, so we remember it — and we also remember everything happening around us when we heard it. That makes them highly effective memory tags, because they're anchored to a very specific time and place.

Neuroscientist & author of "This Is Your Brain on Music