...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.
Daniel J. SiegelRead
Early experience shapes the structure and function of the brain. This reveals the fundamental way in which gene expression is determined by experience.
Interpretation
Early experiences significantly influence brain development and gene expression.
This quote by Daniel J. Siegel emphasizes the critical impact that early life experiences have on the brain's structure and functionality. It suggests that our genetic potential is not determined solely by our DNA, but is also shaped by our interactions and experiences, highlighting the interplay between nature and nurture in human development.
In practice
In a discussion about childhood development and education, you might use this quote to emphasize the importance of early experiences.
...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.
Too often we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioural consequences.
While the days of parenting may seem so long, the years are so short.
We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person's life.
For "full" emotional communication, one person needs to allow his state of mind to be influenced by that of the other.
Grief allows you to let go of something you have lost only when you begin to accept what you now have in its place. As our mind clings to the familiar, to our established expectations, we can become trapped in feelings of disappointment, confusion, anger, that create our own internal worlds of suffering.
E pur si muove. "Albeit It does move". (That's what Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.)
We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.
The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.
We live in the hope and faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together.
More than two decades after the birth of Louise Brown, and all the hysteria that surrounded her 'test tube' conception, we should know that institutions, not technologies, create dystopias. Artificially conceived children are everywhere, beloved by their parents, and they haven't radically altered our world.
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. We have learned a lot about other human organs. We know how the heart pumps and how the kidney does what it does. To a certain degree, we have read the letters of the human genome. But the brain has 100 billion neurons. Each one of those has about 10,000 connections.
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