Mind and matter

It's tempting to think of evolution as a hereditary life jacket, something we receive, not rework. Because each generation stirs the pot, changing its physical, social, and psychological environments, we've been tinkering with human evolution all the time. [...] Our brain is simply one experiment life is running. There are many others, equally unlikely. We don't know the outcome of these trials, we don't even know all the ingredients. Meanwhile, we try to keep an eye on the whole shebang, from prairie vole and ozone layer to skunk cabbage and humans, astonished by the long shot of it all [234].

Because mind is matter, we matter and we mind. We use words like small hand axes. We televise alternate worlds. We scout the invisible. We practice the art of science. As songsters and sages have always said, we dream several dreams, only one of them during the night. For better or for worse, we've become nature's way of thinking about itself, a brain for all seasons [258].

--Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain. Scribner, 2005. ISBN 0743246748.