full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ray Kurzweil: Get ready for hybrid thinking

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Let me tell you a story. It goes back 200 million years. It's a story of the nrtecooex, which means "new rind." So in these early mammlas, because only mammals have a neocortex, rodent-like creatures. It was the size of a postage stmap and just as thin, and was a thin crenvoig around their walnut-sized brain, but it was clpaabe of a new type of thkninig. Rather than the fixed behaviors that non-mammalian animals have, it could invent new behaviors. So a mouse is escaping a predator, its path is blocked, it'll try to invent a new solution. That may work, it may not, but if it does, it will remember that and have a new behavior, and that can actually spread virally through the rest of the community. Another mouse watching this could say, "Hey, that was pretty clever, going around that rock," and it could adopt a new boiehavr as well.

Open Cloze


Let me tell you a story. It goes back 200 million years. It's a story of the _________, which means "new rind." So in these early _______, because only mammals have a neocortex, rodent-like creatures. It was the size of a postage _____ and just as thin, and was a thin ________ around their walnut-sized brain, but it was _______ of a new type of ________. Rather than the fixed behaviors that non-mammalian animals have, it could invent new behaviors. So a mouse is escaping a predator, its path is blocked, it'll try to invent a new solution. That may work, it may not, but if it does, it will remember that and have a new behavior, and that can actually spread virally through the rest of the community. Another mouse watching this could say, "Hey, that was pretty clever, going around that rock," and it could adopt a new ________ as well.

Solution


  1. behavior
  2. covering
  3. neocortex
  4. mammals
  5. stamp
  6. capable
  7. thinking

Original Text


Let me tell you a story. It goes back 200 million years. It's a story of the neocortex, which means "new rind." So in these early mammals, because only mammals have a neocortex, rodent-like creatures. It was the size of a postage stamp and just as thin, and was a thin covering around their walnut-sized brain, but it was capable of a new type of thinking. Rather than the fixed behaviors that non-mammalian animals have, it could invent new behaviors. So a mouse is escaping a predator, its path is blocked, it'll try to invent a new solution. That may work, it may not, but if it does, it will remember that and have a new behavior, and that can actually spread virally through the rest of the community. Another mouse watching this could say, "Hey, that was pretty clever, going around that rock," and it could adopt a new behavior as well.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
million years 4
fixed behaviors 2
high level 2
frontal cortex 2
additional quantity 2
enabling factor 2
qualitative leap 2


Important Words


  1. adopt
  2. animals
  3. behavior
  4. behaviors
  5. blocked
  6. brain
  7. capable
  8. clever
  9. community
  10. covering
  11. creatures
  12. early
  13. escaping
  14. fixed
  15. invent
  16. mammals
  17. means
  18. million
  19. mouse
  20. neocortex
  21. path
  22. postage
  23. predator
  24. pretty
  25. remember
  26. rest
  27. rind
  28. rock
  29. size
  30. solution
  31. spread
  32. stamp
  33. story
  34. thin
  35. thinking
  36. type
  37. virally
  38. watching
  39. work
  40. years