At some point we might perhaps be able to read the rough details of someone’s life—what he did and what was important to him—from the exact molding of his neural resources. If feasible, this would amount to a new kind of science. By looking at how the brain shaped itself, could we know what a person was exposed to, and perhaps what he cared about?

Your brain adjusts itself according to what you spend your time on, as long as those tasks have alignment with rewards or goals.

brains are most flexible at the beginning, in a window of time known as the sensitive period.5 As this period passes, the neural geography becomes more difficult to change.

At the TED conference in 2015, Scott Novich and I algorithmically tracked all the tweets with the hashtag “TED.” On the fly, we aggregated the hundreds of tweets and pushed them through a sentiment analysis program. In this way, we could use a large dictionary of words to classify which tweets were positive (“awesome,” “inspiring,” and so on) and

note that a future of self-configuring devices will change what it means to fix them. Construction workers or car mechanics are rarely surprised: the breaking of one part of the building or engine leads to a reasonably predictable set of consequences. In contrast, young neurologists are often uncertain and insecure. Although they can come to

relevance. Your brain adjusts itself according to what you spend your time on, as long as those tasks have alignment with rewards or goals.

This is the powerful difference between just in case information (learning a collection of facts just in case you ever need to know them) and just in time information (receiving information the moment you seek the answer).

Although DNA is a part of the story of your life, it is only a small part. The rest of the story involves the rich details of your experiences and your environment, all of which sculpt the vast, microscopic tapestry of your brain cells and their connections. What we think of as you is a vessel of experience into which is poured a small sample of

Consider one-trial learning, in which you touch a hot stove once and learn not to do it again. Emergency mechanisms exist to make sure that life- or limb-threatening events are permanently retained. But