Comments on: Books that Changed My Life http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2008/06/15/books-that-changed-my-life/ Politics, Programming and Possibilities Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:11:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: S http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2008/06/15/books-that-changed-my-life/#comment-26775 S Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:39:28 +0000 http://blog.inquirylabs.com/?p=305#comment-26775 Reading Kurzweil's book The Age of Spiritual Machines was a life-changing experience for me. I read it for the first time in 2005, 6 years after it was first published, and remember being amazed. It was my first introduction to topics like genetic algorithms & molecular computing and really got me excited about the future. Reading Kurzweil’s book The Age of Spiritual Machines was a life-changing experience for me. I read it for the first time in 2005, 6 years after it was first published, and remember being amazed. It was my first introduction to topics like genetic algorithms & molecular computing and really got me excited about the future.

]]> By: Duane Johnson http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2008/06/15/books-that-changed-my-life/#comment-26741 Duane Johnson Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:36:23 +0000 http://blog.inquirylabs.com/?p=305#comment-26741 @Cecilia: I found out about Dr. Taylor's experience through TED as well. What an interesting story! I think you've inspired me to take a deeper look at it. It's something that we may be missing in our lives, as you point out---something to balance the great advances we're making in left-brain science. Nice to meet you, by the way! @Cecilia: I found out about Dr. Taylor’s experience through TED as well. What an interesting story! I think you’ve inspired me to take a deeper look at it. It’s something that we may be missing in our lives, as you point out—something to balance the great advances we’re making in left-brain science.

Nice to meet you, by the way!

]]> By: Cecilia http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2008/06/15/books-that-changed-my-life/#comment-26740 Cecilia Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:25:01 +0000 http://blog.inquirylabs.com/?p=305#comment-26740 I read Fantastic Voyage, The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near, and they changed my life. I even found some of his lectures on Itunes and I find myself impatiently awaiting his next book. Recently read another incredible book that I can't recommend highly enough, especially to all of you who also love Ray Kurzweil's work. The book is ""My Stroke of Insight"" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I had heard Dr Taylor's talk on the TED dot com site and I have to say, it changed my world. It's spreading virally all over the internet and the book is now a NYTimes Bestseller, so I'm not the only one, but it is the most amazing talk, and the most impactful book I've read in years. (Dr T also was named to Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People and Oprah had her on her Soul Series last month and I hear they're making a movie about her story so you may already have heard of her) If you haven't heard Dr Taylor's TEDTalk, that's an absolute must. The book is more and deeper and better, but start with the video (it's 18 minutes). Basically, her story is that she was a 37 yr old Harvard brain scientist who had a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, and thanks to her amazingly loving and kind mother, she eventually fully recovered (and that part of the book detailing how she did it is inspirational). There's a lot of learning and magic in the book, but the reason I so highly recommend My Stroke of Insight to this discussion, is because we have powerfully intelligent left brains that are rational, logical, sequential and grounded in detail and time, and then we have our kinesthetic right brains, where we experience intuition and peace and euphoria. Now that Kurzweil has got us taking all those vitamins and living our best ""Fantastic Voyage"" , the absolute necessity is that we read My Stroke of Insight and learn from Dr Taylor how to achieve balance between our right and left brains. Enjoy! I read Fantastic Voyage, The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near, and they changed my life. I even found some of his lectures on Itunes and I find myself impatiently awaiting his next book.

Recently read another incredible book that I can’t recommend highly enough, especially to all of you who also love Ray Kurzweil’s work. The book is “”My Stroke of Insight”" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I had heard Dr Taylor’s talk on the TED dot com site and I have to say, it changed my world. It’s spreading virally all over the internet and the book is now a NYTimes Bestseller, so I’m not the only one, but it is the most amazing talk, and the most impactful book I’ve read in years. (Dr T also was named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and Oprah had her on her Soul Series last month and I hear they’re making a movie about her story so you may already have heard of her)
If you haven’t heard Dr Taylor’s TEDTalk, that’s an absolute must. The book is more and deeper and better, but start with the video (it’s 18 minutes). Basically, her story is that she was a 37 yr old Harvard brain scientist who had a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, and thanks to her amazingly loving and kind mother, she eventually fully recovered (and that part of the book detailing how she did it is inspirational).

There’s a lot of learning and magic in the book, but the reason I so highly recommend My Stroke of Insight to this discussion, is because we have powerfully intelligent left brains that are rational, logical, sequential and grounded in detail and time, and then we have our kinesthetic right brains, where we experience intuition and peace and euphoria. Now that Kurzweil has got us taking all those vitamins and living our best “”Fantastic Voyage”" , the absolute necessity is that we read My Stroke of Insight and learn from Dr Taylor how to achieve balance between our right and left brains. Enjoy!

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