# Failure to Change a Mind Does Not Prove It Is Hard-Wired by Steven R. Quartz > “Failure to alter thought, mood, personality, or other facets of ourselves through environmental means is not a demonstration that these are hard-wired. Rather, such failure should be taken merely as an indication that we have not yet discovered the appropriate regime of experience.” > **— Steven R. Quartz**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* ## Sources and Context - **Direct publication and locator:** [Quartz's Law — Steven R. Quartz](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10865) — 2004 Annual Question response, contiguous sentence(s) within the representative extract. - **Exact original excerpt:** “Failure to alter thought, mood, personality, or other facets of ourselves through environmental means is not a demonstration that these are hard-wired. Rather, such failure should be taken merely as an indication that we have not yet discovered the appropriate regime of experience. New experience-based approaches to brain change are rapidly emerging, and overturn the dogma of the inflexible brain. We can now utilize the brain's latent capacity for change to treat mood disorders through experience-based brain change. Learning how to utilize the brain's latent plasticity, or capacity for change, will produce revolutions in physical, cognitive, and mental health remediation.” - **Context and editing:** Quartz argues that failure of one environmental intervention is not evidence of an inflexible brain. The poster retains his “not” and “merely” limits; later sentences advocate experience-based brain change. No editorial words were inserted. - **Local Edge archive:** [[research/Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation]], response EDGE2004-083. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] - **Article:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Neuroplasticity|Neuroplasticity]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Neuroplasticity|Neuroplasticity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Failure to alter thought, mood, personality, or other facets of ourselves through environmental means is not a demonstration that these are hard-wired. Rather, such failure should be taken merely as an indication that we have not yet discovered the appropriate regime of experience.” — Steven R. Quartz, 2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-steven-quartz-failure-change-mind-not-prove-it ```