Entity quotes
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Christopher_Wolfgang_Alexander
Negative Differences
“We should always expect to see the process of achieving good fit between two entities as a negative process of neutralizing the incongruities, or forces, which cause misfit.”
- Source: Alexander, C. (1964). Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9780674627512. Retrieved 2018-03-29 from https://monoskop.org/images/f/ff/Alexander_Christopher_Notes_on_the_Synthesis_of_Form.pdf . Page 24.
- See Also:
Arthur_Eddington
Brain and Mind
“Take the living human brain endowed with mind and thought. Thought it is one of the indisputable facts of the world. I know that I think, with a certainty which I cannot attribute to any of my physical knowledge of the world. More hypothetically, but on fairly plausible evidence, I am convinced that you have minds which think. Here then is a world fact to be investigated. The physicist brings his tools and commences systematic exploration. All that he discovers is a collection of atoms and electrons and fields of force arranged in space and time, apparently similar to those found in inorganic objects. He may trace other physical characteristics, energy, temperature, entropy. None of these is identical with thought. He might set down thought as an illusion ⎯ some perverse interpretation of the interplay of the physical entities that he has found. Or if he sees the folly of calling the most undoubted element of our experience an illusion, he will have to face the tremendous question, How can this collection of ordinary atoms be a thinking machine?”
- Source: Eddington, A. (1932). The Nature of the Physical World (Cheap). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://henry.pha.jhu.edu
/Eddington.2008.pdf. Chapter VII. page 130.
- Keywords: Brain_quotes Mind_quotes Thinking_quotes Fact_quotes Indisputable_quotes World_quotes Knowledge_quotes Certainty_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Plausible_quotes Evidence_quotes Physics_quotes Tool_quotes Systematic_quotes Exploration_quotes Discovery_quotes Atom_quotes Electron_quotes Field_quotes Space_quotes Time_quotes Energy_quotes Physical_quotes Materialism_quotes Temperature_quotes Entropy_quotes Illusion_quotes Perversity_quotes Interpretation_quotes Interplay_quotes Folly_quotes Experience_quotes Question_quotes Human_quotes Think_quotes Find_quotes Entity_quotes Undoubted_quotes Element_quotes Machine_quotes
David_Kipping
You Are Sentient
“Whether you're a piece of computer code or real. Simulacra or physical. Conscious entities are conscious all the same. You are self-aware. You are sentient.”
- Source: David Kipping from the YouTube “Why You're Probably Not a Simulation”, posted 2020-09-04 in the channel ‘Cool Worlds’. Video offset 32:48. Online at https://youtu.be/HA5YuwvJkpQ (2025).
Steven_Pinker
Mind and Soul
“The traditional explanation of intelligence is that human flesh is suffused with a non-material entity, the soul, usually envisioned as some kind of ghost or spirit. But the theory faces an insurmountable problem: How does the spook interact with solid matter? How does an ethereal nothing respond to flashes, pokes, and beeps and get arms and legs to move? Another problem is the overwhelming evidence that the mind is the activity of the brain.”
- Source: Steven Pinker (1997). How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06973-0; eISBN 978-0-393-06973-0. Chapter 2 The search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.
- Keywords: Tradition_quotes Explanation_quotes Intelligence_quotes Human_quotes Flesh_quotes Suffuse_quotes Non-Material_quotes Material_quotes Entity_quotes Envision_quotes Kind_quotes Ghost_quotes Spirit_quotes Theory_quotes Insurmountable_quotes Problem_quotes Spook_quotes Interaction_quotes Solid_quotes Matter_quotes Ethereal_quotes Nothing_quotes Respond_quotes Flash_quotes Poke_quotes Beep_quotes Arm_quotes Leg_quotes Movement_quotes Overwhelm_quotes Evidence_quotes Mind_quotes Activity_quotes Brain_quotes Soul_quotes
Willard_Van_Orman_Quine
Science as a Tool
“As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries - not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.”
- Source: From A Logical Point of View (1953), p. 44.
- Keywords: Empirical_quotes Thinking_quotes Conceptual_quotes Scheme_quotes Science_quotes Tool_quotes Prediction_quotes Future_quotes Experience_quotes Light_quotes Past_quotes Physical_quotes Object_quotes Import_quotes Situation_quotes Convenience_quotes Intermediary_quotes Definition_quotes Term_quotes Irreducible_quotes Posit_quotes Compare_quotes Epistemology_quotes God_quotes Myth_quotes Part_quotes Physics_quotes Belief_quotes Error_quotes Point_quotes Degree_quotes Kind_quotes Entity_quotes Culture_quotes Superior_quotes Proof_quotes Effectiveness_quotes Device_quotes Management_quotes Structure_quotes Flux_quotes Homer(topic)_quotes Efficacious_quotes
Rupert_Sheldrake
Multiverse
“This multiverse theory is the ultimate violation of Occam’s Razor, the philosophical principle that ‘entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity,' or in other words, that we should make as few assumptions as possible. It also has the major disadvantage of being untestable. And it does not even succeed in getting rid of God. An infinite God could be the God of an infinite number of universes.”
- Source: Rupert Sheldrake. The book “Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery”, Introduction, page 12. Published in 2012 by Crown Publishing, New York, NY. Kindle Edition. ISBN: 978-0-7704-3671-1.
- Keywords: Multiverse_quotes Theory_quotes Ultimate_quotes Occam(topic)_quotes OccamsRazor_quotes Philosophy_quotes Principle_quotes Entity_quotes Multiply_quotes Beyond_quotes Necessity_quotes Assumption_quotes Possible_quotes Major_quotes Disadvantage_quotes Testing_quotes Success_quotes Rid_quotes God_quotes Infinite_quotes Number_quotes Universe_quotes
Stephen_Wolfram
Computational Irreducibility
“I’ve increasingly come to view the whole fundamental story of science as being about the interplay between computational irreducibility and computational reducibility. The computational nature of things inevitably leads to computational irreducibility. But there are slices of computational reducibility that inevitably exist on top of this irreducibility that are what make it possible for us — as computationally bounded entities — to identify meaningful scientific laws and to do science.”
- Source: Stephen Wolfram. “The Wolfram Physics Project: A One-Year Update” published 2021-04-14 at https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-physics-project-a-one-year-update/.
- Keywords: View_quotes Whole_quotes Fundamental_quotes Story_quotes Science_quotes Interplay_quotes Between_quotes Computation_quotes Irredicible_quotes Reducible_quotes Nature_quotes Inevitable_quotes Lead_quotes Slice_quotes Exist_quotes Top_quotes Make_quotes Possible_quotes Bound_quotes Entity_quotes Identify_quotes Meaning_quotes Law_quotes Do_quotes
