Hélio Steven

“The extension of minds into the world through the use of artifacts was perhaps the last vital step in the evolution of culture that underlies the modern mind. Written symbols, alphabets and number systems, are ways of using the world to hold ideas. These external symbols allow a society a capacity for systematic thinking that would be impossible otherwise, a process we have referred to earlier as progressive externalization. Indeed, these external devices are not just static devices for memory storage. We have built external devices that process information, mirroring the process of thought inside our heads, at least loosely. Consider numerical calculation. You are limited in the amount of numbers you can easily add in your head. A paper and pencil increase this ability tremendously by letting you manipulate external symbols and hold intermediate steps in the calculation. By using artifacts that themselves process symbols, such as a handheld calculator, however, you can dramatically extend the realm of thought.”
― Steven R. Quartz, Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are – Understanding Cultural Biology and the Ancient Systems Behind Our Humanity

“In the cosmic scheme of things, your life barely registers as a blip. It is hardly noticeable in the long arc of history. The information you produce by moving your arm up is not going to tell you much about anything of interest. But when you scope down in a way that reflects the horizon scaled to human thought and action, your life looms large in the image. It doesn’t just loom large; it occupies a central place. The events of your life provide the frame of reference around which the events of History arrange themselves in circles of diminishing knowledge and concern. The difference that your choices make to your own future is large, indeed.”
― Jenann Ismael, How Physics Makes Us Free

“A fair social contract is then taken to be an equilibrium in the game of life that calls for the use of strategies which, if used in the game of morals, would never leave a player with an incentive to exercise his right of appeal to the device of the original position. So a fair social contract is an equilibrium in the game of morals, but it must never be forgotten that it is also an equilibrium in the game of life; otherwise evolution will sweep it away. Indeed, the game of morals is nothing more than a coordination device for selecting one of the equilibria in the game of life.”
― Ken Binmore, Natural Justice

“Representation is a process of informational triangulation. Its aim is the specification of distal stimuli. It achieves that aim by corralling the output of multiple information channels integrated at their point of confluence. The integration process, in short, disambiguates individual information channels via the mutual constraints each channel provides others. The specificity won thereby falls on a continuum from the highly unspecific (simple transducers, little integrative depth) to the highly specific (subtle transducers, manifold integration).”
― Dan Lloyd, Simple Minds