Ted Chiang

It is a misconception to think that during evolution humans sacrificed physical skill in exchange for intelligence: wielding one's body is a mental activity. While my strength hasn't increased, my coordination is now well above average; I'm even becoming ambidextrous. Moreover, my powers of concentration make biofeedback techniques very effective. After comparatively little practice, I am able to raise or lower my heart rate and blood pressure.

much is incorporated within patterns now that the entire universe verges on resolving itself into a picture.

might determine whether mind could be spontaneously generated from matter, and understand what relates consciousness with the rest of the universe. I might see how to merge subject and object: the zero experience.

Perhaps I would see the soul, the ingredient of consciousness that surpasses physicality.

She, like many, had always thought that mathematics did not derive its meaning from the universe, but rather imposed some meaning onto the universe.

"As all things are reflections of God, so are all names reflections of the divine name."
"And what is an object's true name?"
"That name which reflects the divine name in the same manner as the object reflects God."
"And what is the action of a true name?"
"To endow its object with a reflection of divine power."

"Marvel at creatures the likes of which have never been seen on God's green earth."

Any hypothetical path would require more time to traverse than the one actually taken. In other words, the route that the light ray takes is always the fastest possible one. That's Fermat's principle of least time.

You'll be incessantly running off somewhere, and each time you walk into a door frame or scrape your knee, the pain feels like it's my own. It'll be like growing an errant limb, an extension of myself whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor nerves don't convey my commands at all. It's so unfair

When both sides can win: I just remembered, it's called a non-zero-sum game.