Knowledge quotes

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Russell_L_Ackoff

Wisdom Understanding Knowledge

“There can be no wisdom without understanding and no understanding without knowledge.”
  • Source: Russell L. Ackoff in “From Data to Wisdom” published 1988 in the Journal of Applied Systems Analysis, volume 16. Transcript of the presidential address to ISGSR, June 1988.
Keywords: Wisdom_quotes Understanding_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Douglas_Adams

Don't Panic

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover”.
  • Source: Adams, D. (1979). ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. New York, NY: Harmony Books.
Keywords: Panic_quotes Repository_quotes Knowledge_quotes Wisdom_quotes Accuracy_quotes Relax_quotes Civilization_quotes Galaxy_quotes Guide_quotes Encyclopedia_quotes Galactica_quotes Hiker_quotes Standards_quotes Omission_quotes Apocryphal_quotes Wild_quotes Inaccurate_quotes Score_quotes Old_quotes Pedestrian_quotes Work_quotes Cheap_quotes Word_quotes Inscribe_quotes Large_quotes Friendly_quotes Letter_quotes Cover_quotes

Herbert_George_Andrewartha

Model Making

“Model-making, the imaginative and logical steps which precede the experiment, may be judged the most valuable part of the scientific method because skill and insight in these matters are rare. Without them, we do not know what experiment to do. But it is the experiment which provides the raw material for scientific theory. Scientific theory cannot be built directly from the conclusions of conceptual models.”
  • Source: Herbert George Andrewartha, Introduction to the Study of Animal Population (1961), 181.
Keywords: Model_quotes Experiment_quotes Creativity_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Theory_quotes Make_quotes Imagination_quotes Logic_quotes Valuable_quotes Skill_quotes Insight_quotes Rare_quotes Knowledge_quotes Provide_quotes Raw_quotes Material_quotes Science_quotes Direct_quotes Conclusion_quotes Conceptual_quotes

Aristotle

Four Causes

“Plainly, then, these are the causes, and this is how many they are. They are four, and the student of nature should know them all, and it will be his method, when stating on account of what, to get back to them all: the matter, the form, the thing which effects the change, and what the thing is for.”'
  • Source: Aristotle, From Physics, Book II, Part 7, 198a21-26. As quoted in Stephen Everson, 'Aristotle on the Foundations of the State', Political Studies (1988), 36, 89-101. Reprinted in Lloyd P. Gerson (ed.), Aristotle: Politics, Rhetoric and Aesthetics (1999), 74.
Keywords: Epistemology_quotes Physics_quotes Cause_quotes Student_quotes Nature_quotes Knowledge_quotes Method_quotes Matter_quotes Form_quotes Effect_quotes Change_quotes

Men Desire to Know

“All men by nature desire to know.”
  • Source: Aristotle, ‘Metaphysics’, Book 1.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Humanity_quotes Men_quotes Nature_quotes Desire_quotes

First Principles

“For we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried out analysis as far as its simplest elements.”
  • Source: Aristotle (circa 350 BCE). Metaphysics. Book I. Translated into English by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye.
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Knowledge_quotes Acquainted_quotes Primary_quotes Condition_quotes First_quotes Principle_quotes Analysis_quotes Simplicity_quotes Element_quotes Reductionism_quotes

Isaac_Asimov

Circumstantial Evidence

“Circumstantial evidence can be overwhelming. We have never seen an atom, but we nevertheless know that it must exist.”
  • Source: Isaac Asimov, chapter epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, edited by Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman, published in 1988 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, New York. Chapter 8, page 31. ISBN 1-555-84111-2.
Keywords: Evidence_quotes Physics_quotes Circumstance_quotes Overwhelm_quotes Atom_quotes Knowledge_quotes Existence_quotes

Jim_Baggott

The Reality Principle

“The Reality Principle. Reality is a metaphysical concept, and as such it is beyond the reach of science. Reality consists of things-in-themselves of which we can never hope to gain knowledge. Instead, we have to content ourselves with knowledge of empirical reality, of things-as-they-appear or things-as-they-are-measured. Nevertheless, scientific realists assume that reality (and its entities) exists objectively and independently of perception or measurement. They believe that reality is rational, predictable and accessible to human reason.”
  • Source: Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 8). Pegasus Books, New York, NY.
Keywords: Reality_quotes Metaphysics_quotes Conception_quotes Science_quotes Knowledge_quotes Epistemology_quotes Empirical_quotes Measurement_quotes Objectivity_quotes Independent_quotes Perception_quotes Belief_quotes Rational_quotes Reason_quotes Prediction_quotes Accessibility_quotes Human_quotes Principle_quotes

The Fact Principle

“The Fact Principle. Our knowledge and understanding of empirical reality are founded on verified scientific facts derived from careful observation and experiment. But the facts themselves are not theory-neutral. Observation and experiment are simply not possible without reference to a supporting theory of some kind.”
  • Source: Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 12). Pegasus Books. New York, NY.
Keywords: Fact_quotes Principle_quotes Knowledge_quotes Understanding_quotes Empirical_quotes Reality_quotes Verification_quotes Science_quotes Observation_quotes Experiment_quotes Theory_quotes Abstraction_quotes

The Veracity Principle

“The Veracity Principle. It is not possible to verify a scientific theory such that it provides absolute certainty for all time. A theory is instead accepted (or even tolerated), on the basis of its ability to survive the tests and meet additional criteria of simplicity, efficacy, utility, explanatory power and less rational, innately human measures such as beauty. Over time the theory becomes familiar and is accepted as ‘true’ or, at least, as possessing a high truth-likeness or verisimilitude. The scientists’ confidence or degree of belief in the theory grows. It is eventually absorbed into the common body of knowledge which forms the current ‘authorized’ version of empirical reality.”
  • Source: Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 22). Pegasus Books. New York, NY.
Keywords: Veracity_quotes Verification_quotes Principle_quotes Science_quotes Theory_quotes Certainty_quotes Acceptance_quotes Tolerance_quotes Ability_quotes Survival_quotes Simplicity_quotes Efficacy_quotes Utility_quotes Explanation_quotes Power_quotes Rational_quotes Human_quotes Measurement_quotes Beauty_quotes Time_quotes Truth_quotes Probability_quotes Likelihood_quotes Verisimilitude_quotes Confidence_quotes Belief_quotes Knowledge_quotes Authority_quotes Empirical_quotes Reality_quotes

F_Terry_Baker

Program Ownership

“A program or program system is a group product and should be produced in a way which allows and encourages maximum knowledge of it by each person involved. Furthermore, the management responsible for its development should be able to determine its status directly and not depend on the programmer's description of his progress on an 'invisible product'.”
  • Source: Baker, F. T. (1975). Software Management Through Improved Programming Technology. ACM ’75: Proceedings of the 1975 Annual Conference, 286–287. https://doi.org/10.1145/800181.810346
Keywords: Programming_quotes Library_quotes Source_Code_quotes Management_quotes Software_Management_quotes Program_quotes System_quotes Group_quotes Product_quotes Produce_quotes Allow_quotes Encourage_quotes Maximum_quotes Knowledge_quotes Person_quotes Involve_quotes Responsible_quotes Development_quotes Ability_quotes Determine_quotes Status_quotes Direct_quotes Depend_quotes Description_quotes Progress_quotes Invisible_quotes

Claude_Bernard

Narrow Observation

“Only within very narrow boundaries can man observe the phenomena which surround him; most of them naturally escape his senses, and mere observation is not enough. To extend his knowledge, he has had to increase the power of his organs by means of special appliances.”
  • Source: From the book "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine" written by Claude Bernard published in French in 1865 as "Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale". Translated to English by Henry Copley Greene in 1927 and republished by Henry Shuman, Inc. in 1949. Chapter I, page 5. Available online at https://archive.org/details/b21270557 retrieved 2024.
Keywords: Narrow_quotes Boundary_quotes Observation_quotes Phenomena_quotes Surround_quotes Natural_quotes Escape_quotes Sense_quotes Extend_quotes Knowledge_quotes Increase_quotes Power_quotes Organ_quotes Means_quotes Special_quotes Appliance_quotes

Mediocre Men

“Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.”
  • Source: From the book "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine" written by Claude Bernard published in French in 1865 as "Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale". Translated to English by Henry Copley Greene in 1927 and republished by Henry Shuman, Inc. in 1949. Chapter II, page 42. Available online at https://archive.org/details/b21270557 retrieved 2024.
Keywords: Mediocre_quotes Men_quotes Often_quotes Acquire_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Max_Born

Experience and Knowledge

“But in practical affairs, particularly in politics, men are needed who combine human experience and interest in human relations with a knowledge of science and technology. Moreover, they must be men of action and not contemplation. I have the impression that no method of education can produce people with all the qualities required. I am haunted by the idea that this break in human civilization, caused by the discovery of the scientific method, may be irreparable.”
  • Source: Max Born, My Life & My Views (1968), 57-8.
Keywords: Political_quotes Humanity_quotes Experience_quotes Interest_quotes Science_quotes Technology_quotes Contemplation_quotes Action_quotes Education_quotes Civilization_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Practical_quotes Affair_quotes Men_quotes Need_quotes Combine_quotes Relation_quotes Knowledge_quotes Impression_quotes Produce_quotes People_quotes Quality_quotes Require_quotes Haunt_quotes Idea_quotes Break_quotes Discovery_quotes Irreparable_quotes

Robert_N_Britcher

Software People Rare

“But the number of people who know how software is written is small. Most of us are not talking, or we are saying 'Trust us'.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 17.
Keywords: Programming_quotes People_quotes Software_quotes Trust_quotes Rare_quotes Number_quotes Knowledge_quotes Writing_quotes Small_quotes Talk_quotes Say_quotes

Consciousness

“Consciousness is a word created by humans, in this case English-speaking humans, to describe something humans know nothing about.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 28.
Keywords: Consciousness_quotes Word_quotes Language_quotes Humanity_quotes Knowledge_quotes Ignorance_quotes Create_quotes Speak_quotes Description_quotes

Limits of Testing

“The limits of software are never more obvious than in its testing. Software systems are beyond discrete and statistical analysis. A single incorrect state - out of two to the trillionth states - can down a rocket: To find such a fault in a software system would require a hundred generations of programmers - but after the first failure is found and fixed, all bets are off; they wouldn't be testing the same system anymore. We can design and build fail-safe systems, but can we know we did?”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 56.
Keywords: Limitation_quotes Software_quotes Obvious_quotes Testing_quotes Discrete_quotes Statistics_quotes Analysis_quotes State_quotes Incorrect_quotes Correctness_quotes Error_quotes Rocket_quotes Fault_quotes System_quotes Programmer_quotes Programming_quotes Failure_quotes Correction_quotes Found_quotes Design_quotes Safe_quotes Knowledge_quotes Limit_quotes Beyond_quotes Trillion_quotes Down_quotes Find_quotes Require_quotes Generation_quotes First_quotes Fix_quotes Bet_quotes Off_quotes Fail_Safe_quotes

Scientific Method and Testing

“The scientific method is not part of their curriculum. The men and women who are called upon to test computer systems know little, if anything, about running a simple experiment.”
  • Source:Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 58.
Keywords: Scientific_Method_quotes Curriculum_quotes Education_quotes Testing_quotes System_quotes Computer_quotes Knowledge_quotes Experiment_quotes Part_quotes Men_quotes Women_quotes Call_quotes Little_quotes Run_quotes Simple_quotes

Did Not Know

“What I didn't know then was that I didn't know what I was doing.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 59.
Keywords: Ignorance_quotes Knowledge_quotes Do_quotes

Requirements Testing

“Requirements testing is a subtle way of treating a nonlinear, unpredictable system as if it were a discrete symbol like a number or a word. The potential and the actual become muddled. Requirements are natural language statements, peppered in places with arithmetic. These are discrete and usually quite vague representations of the system as it might become. But the truth is that two teams writing requirements for the same system would describe them differently, and neither would get it quite right, simply because 'right' cannot be known until the system is built. ... Requirements testing is a little like trying to reduce crime in England by running a test for each line in the Magna Carta. In practice, rhetoric replaces the scientific method. As with mathematical proofs, the quest for 'true or not false' soon turns into a party - a not very cordial party - marked by endless debate over whether this sentence or that sentence has been verified by this moment of behavior or that.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 157.
Keywords: Requirements_quotes Testing_quotes Nonlinear_quotes Unpredictable_quotes Prediction_quotes System_quotes Symbol_quotes Potential_quotes Actual_quotes Language_quotes Arithmetic_quotes Discrete_quotes Vagueness_quotes Representation_quotes Truth_quotes Team_quotes Writing_quotes Description_quotes Correctness_quotes Accuracy_quotes Knowledge_quotes Magna_Carta_quotes Rhetorical_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Mathematics_quotes True_quotes False_quotes Debate_quotes Verification_quotes Behavior_quotes Subtle_quotes Treat_quotes Number_quotes Word_quotes Muddle_quotes Natural_quotes Pepper_quotes Right_quotes Build_quotes Try_quotes Reduce_quotes Crime_quotes England_quotes Line_quotes Practice_quotes Proof_quotes Quest_quotes Party_quotes Cordial_quotes Sentence_quotes Moment_quotes

Knowing Versus Doing

“We should not give up because there is no unified field theory of software engineering. The elements may not be easy to implement, but they are relatively simple, especially when compared with the study of proteins. ... The problem is not that we do not know enough. The problem is that we do not practice what we know.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 209.
Keywords: Persistence_quotes Unification_quotes Theory_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Element_quotes Hard_quotes Simplicity_quotes Protein_quotes Problem_quotes Knowledge_quotes Action_quotes Practice_quotes Doing_quotes Software_quotes Engineering_quotes Easy_quotes Implement_quotes Relative_quotes Compare_quotes Study_quotes Practice_quotes

Warren_Buffett

Money Versus Business

“So as a practical matter we need management with the businesses that we buy and three times out of four thereabouts the manager is the owner and is receiving tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions of dollars so they don't have to work and we have to decide in that time when we meet them whether they love the business or love money... I'm not making a moral judgment about whether it's better to love the business or love money but it's very important for me to know which which of the two is the primary motivator with them... so all all we have to do is avoid anything that on our part that diminishes that love of the business or makes other conditions so intolerable that they overcome that love of the business. We have a number of people working for us that have no financial need to work at all and they probably outwork 95 percent or more of the people in the world and they do it because they just they love smacking the ball.”
Keywords: Practical_quotes Matter_quotes Management_quotes Business_quotes Owner_quotes Receive_quotes Money_quotes Work_quotes Decide_quotes Love_quotes Morality_quotes Judgment_quotes Knowledge_quotes Diminish_quotes Motivator_quotes Primary_quotes Avoid_quotes Condition_quotes Intolerable_quotes Overcome_quotes People_quotes Financial_quotes Need_quotes Outwork_quotes Do_quotes Smack_quotes Ball_quotes

Confucius

You Know

“When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge.”

Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Self_quotes True_quotes Hold_quotes Allow_quotes

Nigel_Cross

Designerly Ways

"I identified five aspects of designerly ways of knowing: Designers tackle ‘ill-defined’ problems. Their mode of problem-solving is ‘solution-focused’. Their mode of thinking is ‘constructive’. They use ‘codes’ that translate abstract requirements into concrete objects. They use these codes to both ‘read’ and ‘write’ in ‘object languages’."
Keywords: Design_quotes Knowledge_quotes Aspect_quotes Problem_quotes Requirements_quotes Solution_quotes Definition_quotes Thinking_quotes Constructive_quotes Code_quotes Translation_quotes Abstraction_quotes Object_quotes Mode_quotes Concrete_quotes Read_quotes Write_quotes

David_Deutsch

Gigantic Computation

“Think of all our knowledge-generating processes, our whole culture and civilization, and all the thought processes in the minds of every individual, and indeed the entire evolving biosphere as well, as being a gigantic computation. The whole thing is executing a self-motivated, self-generating computer program. More specifically it is, as I have mentioned, a virtual-reality program in the process of rendering, with ever-increasing accuracy, the whole of existence.”
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Culture_quotes Civilization_quotes Thinking_quotes Process_quotes Mind_quotes Evolution_quotes Biosphere_quotes Computed_Reality_quotes Computation_quotes Virtual_Reality_quotes Program_quotes Rendering_quotes Accuracy_quotes Existence_quotes Increase_quotes Generate_quotes Whole_quotes Computer_quotes Gigantic_quotes

Mathematical Knowledge

“Mathematical knowledge may, just like our scientific knowledge, be deep and broad, it may be subtle and wonderfully explanatory, it may be uncontroversially accepted; but it cannot be certain.”
  • Source: David Deutsch in the book “The Fabric of Reality”. ISBN 978-0713990614. Published in 1997 by Viking Press. Chapter 10.
Keywords: Mathematics_quotes Knowledge_quotes Science_quotes Depth_quotes Breadth_quotes Explanation_quotes Acceptability_quotes Certainty_quotes

Error Correction

“Without error-correction all information processing, and hence all knowledge-creation, is necessarily bounded. Error-correction is the beginning of infinity.”
  • Source: David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (2011).
Keywords: Error_quotes Correction_quotes Information_quotes Knowledge_quotes Creativity_quotes Bounding_quotes Infinity_quotes Data_quotes Processing_quotes Create_quotes Beginning_quotes

John_Dewey

Scientific Inquiry

“That the great majority of those who leave school should have some idea of the kind of evidence required to substantiate given types of belief does not seem unreasonable. Nor is it absurd to expect that they should go forth with a lively interest in the ways in which knowledge is improved and a marked distaste for all conclusions reached in disharmony with the methods of scientific inquiry.”
  • Source: John Dewey, Address to Section L, Education, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Boston (1909), 'Science as Subject-Matter and as Method'. Published in Science (28 Jan 1910), N.S. Vol. 31, No. 787, 126.
Keywords: Science_quotes School_quotes Idea_quotes Evidence_quotes Belief_quotes Interest_quotes Knowledge_quotes Conclusion_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Error_quotes Improvement_quotes Majority_quotes Substantiate_quotes Absurd_quotes Expect_quotes Distaste_quotes Disharmony_quotes Method_quotes Inquiry_quotes

Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra

Information Knowledge Understanding Wisdom

“May, in spite of all distractions generated by technology, all of you succeed in turning information into knowledge, knowledge into understanding, and understanding into wisdom.”
Keywords: Technology_quotes Information_quotes Knowledge_quotes Understanding_quotes Wisdom_quotes Distraction_quotes Generate_quotes Succeed_quotes Turn_quotes

Paul_Dirac

Physics and Poetry

“How can you do both physics and poetry? In physics we try to explain in simple terms something that nobody knew before. In poetry it is the exact opposite.”
  • Source: Paul Dirac to Oppenheimer, as reported in H. S. Kragh, “Dirac: A Scientific Biography”, Cambridge University Press (1990), p. 258. ISBN 0-521-38089-8.
Keywords: Physics_quotes Mathematics_quotes Poetry_quotes Explanation_quotes Simplicity_quotes Knowledge_quotes Before_quotes After_quotes

Arthur_Conan_Doyle

Know Things Others Overlook

“It is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me?”

Keywords: Business_quotes Knowledge_quotes Train_quotes See_quotes Observation_quotes Overlook_quotes Consult_quotes

Peter_Drucker

Future Different

“The only thing we know about the future is that it is going to be different.”
  • Source: Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Harper & Row, 1973. p. 44.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Future_quotes Go_quotes Differences_quotes Change_quotes Prediction_quotes

Knowledge Workers

“The newly emerging dominant group is 'knowledge workers.' The very term was unknown forty years ago. (I coined it in a 1959 book, Landmarks of Tomorrow.) By the end of this century knowledge workers will make up a third or more of the work force in the United States-- as large a proportion as manufacturing workers ever made up, except in wartime. The majority of them will be paid at least as well as, or better than, manufacturing workers ever were. And the new jobs offer much greater opportunities.”
  • Source: Peter Drucker, “The Age of Social Transformation”, The Atlantic Monthly; Nov. 1994; Vol. 274, No. 5. p. 53-80.
Keywords: Emergence_quotes Domination_quotes Group_quotes Knowledge_quotes Worker_quotes Term_quotes Unknown_quotes Year_quotes Coin_quotes Book_quotes Tomorrow_quotes End_quotes Century_quotes Work_quotes Force_quotes United_States_quotes Large_quotes Proportion_quotes Manufacture_quotes Wartime_quotes Majority_quotes Pay_quotes Better_quotes Job_quotes Great_quotes Opportunity_quotes

Freeman_Dyson

Science and Society

“In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, 'Sorry, but we don’t know.' The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.”
  • Source: Freeman Dyson, Frederick S. Pardee Distinguished Lecture (Oct 2005), Boston University. Collected in 'Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society', A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (2007), 43-44.
Keywords: World_quotes Modern_quotes Science_quotes Society_quotes Interaction_quotes Perversity_quotes Technology_quotes Political_quotes Problem_quotes Politician_quotes People_quotes Answer_quotes Expert_quotes Knowledge_quotes Confidence_quotes Prediction_quotes Humanity_quotes Activity_quotes Talking_quotes Contention_quotes Thinking_quotes Future_quotes Belief_quotes Dogma_quotes Bias_quotes Heretical_quotes

Arthur_Eddington

Something Unknown

“Something unknown is doing we don't know what.”
  • Source: Eddington, A. (1932). The Nature of the Physical World. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Chapter XIII.
Keywords: Unknown_quotes Knowledge_quotes Doing_quotes

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?”
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

Albert_Einstein

Intuition and Inspiration

“I believe in intuition and inspiration. ... At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.”
  • Source: Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97; also in Transformation : Arts, Communication, Environment (1950) by Harry Holtzman, p. 138.
Keywords: Intuition_quotes Inspiration_quotes Certainty_quotes Imagination_quotes Creativity_quotes Knowledge_quotes Science_quotes Research_quotes Reason_quotes Eclipse_quotes Confirm_quotes Surprise_quotes Astonish_quotes Important_quotes Limit_quotes Embrace_quotes World_quotes Stimulate_quotes Progress_quotes Birth_quotes Evolution_quotes Factor_quotes

Science is Primitive

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
  • Source: Letter to Hans Muehsam (9 July 1951), Einstein Archives 38-408, quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) by Alice Calaprice, page 404.
Keywords: Science_quotes Reality_quotes Wisdom_quotes Knowledge_quotes Values_quotes Learn_quotes Life_quotes Primitive_quotes Childlike_quotes Precious_quotes

Quantum Adaptation

“All my attempts... to adapt the theoretical foundations of physics to this [new type of] knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere...”
  • Source: (Einstein, 1949a) Einstein, A. 1949a. "Autobiographical Notes" in P.A. Schilpp (editor), 1949, "Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist", Library of Living Philosophers, Evanston, Illinois.
Keywords: Physics_quotes Quantum_quotes Knowledge_quotes Certainty_quotes Change_quotes Confusion_quotes Theoretical_quotes Foundation_quotes Fail_quotes Pull_quotes Ground_quotes

Simplicity

“Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler”
  • Source: Probably the Words of Albert Einstein, quoted in an interview reported in the article “How a Difficult Composer Gets That Way”, published in the New York Times, 1950-01-08, written by Roger Sessions.
Keywords: Simplicity_quotes Design_quotes Knowledge_quotes Abstraction_quotes Everything_quotes

Science Objective and Subjective

“Science as something already in existence, already completed, is the most objective, impersonal thing that we humans know. Science as something coming into being, as a goal, is just as subjectively, psychologically conditioned as are all other human endeavors.”
  • Source: Albert Einstein, address to the students of UCLA, February 1932.
    • Included in Builders of the Universe: From the Bible to the Theory of Relativity, written by Albert Einstein. Los Angeles, CA: U.S. Library Association, p. 91.
Keywords: Science_quotes Objectivity_quotes Subjectivity_quotes Humanity_quotes Psychology_quotes Reality_quotes Existence_quotes Completion_quotes Knowledge_quotes Impersonal_quotes Goal_quotes Condition_quotes Endeavor_quotes

Dwight_D_Eisenhower

Military-Industrial Complex

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
  • Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell address (17 January 1961).
Keywords: Government_quotes Guard_quotes Acquire_quotes Unwarranted_quotes Influence_quotes Military_quotes Defense_quotes Industrial_quotes Complex_quotes Potential_quotes Disaster_quotes Rise_quotes Misplace_quotes Power_quotes Existence_quotes Persistence_quotes Weight_quotes Combination_quotes Danger_quotes Freedom_quotes Liberty_quotes Democracy_quotes Process_quotes Grant_quotes Assumption_quotes Alert_quotes Knowledge_quotes Citizen_quotes Compel_quotes Machine_quotes Peace_quotes Methodology_quotes Goal_quotes Security_quotes Prosperity_quotes Together_quotes Cooperation_quotes Regulation_quotes

David_Epstein

Knowledge Bridge

“Work that builds bridges between disparate pieces of knowledge is less likely to be funded, less likely to appear in famous journals, more likely to be ignored upon publication, and then more likely in the long run to be a smash hit in the library of human knowledge.”
  • Source: David Epstein in the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”. Published 2019 by Riverhead Books. Chapter 12, page 282. ISBN 978-0735214484.
Keywords: Work_quotes Build_quotes Between_quotes Disparate_quotes Piece_quotes Knowledge_quotes Less_quotes Likely_quotes Fund_quotes Appear_quotes Famous_quotes Journal_quotes Ignore_quotes Publication_quotes Long_quotes Run_quotes Smash_quotes Hit_quotes Library_quotes Human_quotes

Michael_Faraday

Laws of Nature

“The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the foundation of our knowledge in natural things. So much as we know of them has been developed by the successive energies of the highest intellects, exerted through many ages. After a most rigid and scrutinizing examination upon principle and trial, a definite expression has been given to them; they have become, as it were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still examine and test our expressions of them. We have no interest in their retention if erroneous. On the contrary, the greatest discovery a man could make would be to prove that one of these accepted laws was erroneous, and his greatest honour would be the discovery.”
  • Source: Book/Author=Michael Faraday; Title=“Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics”; Publication/Date=1859; Page=469.
Keywords: Law_quotes Nature_quotes Understanding_quotes Foundation_quotes Knowledge_quotes Energy_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Examination_quotes Principle_quotes Trial_quotes Expression_quotes Belief_quotes Trust_quotes Testing_quotes Interest_quotes Retention_quotes Error_quotes Discovery_quotes Proof_quotes Falsification_quotes Honor_quotes Rigid_quotes Examine_quotes Man_quotes

Richard_Feynman

No One Understands Quantum

“I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it possibly be like that?' because you will go down the drain into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”
  • Source: Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law (1965).
Keywords: Safe_quotes Understanding_quotes Quantum_quotes Comprehension_quotes Drain_quotes Blind_quotes Alley_quotes Escape_quotes Knowledge_quotes Think_quotes Say_quotes Possible_quotes Mechanics_quotes Down_quotes

Milton_Friedman

Positive Knowledge

“In both social and natural sciences, the body of positive knowledge grows by the failure of a tentative hypothesis to predict phenomena the hypothesis professes to explain; by the patching up of that hypothesis until someone suggests a new hypothesis that more elegantly or simply embodies the troublesome phenomena, and so on ad infinitum. In both, experiment is sometimes possible, sometimes not (witness meteorology). In both, no experiment is ever completely controlled, and experience often offers evidence that is the equivalent of controlled experiment. In both, there is no way to have a self-contained closed system or to avoid interaction between the observer and the observed. The Gödel theorem in mathematics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, the self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecy in the social sciences all exemplify these limitations.”
  • Source: Milton Friedman, Inflation and Unemployment (1976), 348
Keywords: Society_quotes Nature_quotes Science_quotes Knowledge_quotes Failure_quotes Tentative_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Prediction_quotes Phenomena_quotes Explanation_quotes Elegant_quotes Infinity_quotes Experiment_quotes Meteorology_quotes Control_quotes Evidence_quotes Equal_quotes Closed_quotes System_quotes Avoidance_quotes Interaction_quotes Observation_quotes Measurement_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Mathematics_quotes Principle_quotes Physics_quotes Self-Fulfill_quotes Self-Defeat_quotes Prophecy_quotes Limitation_quotes Positive_quotes Grow_quotes Suggest_quotes Troublesome_quotes Gödel(topic)_quotes Heisenberg(topic)_quotes

Donald_C_Gause

Know What They Want

“In spite of appearances, people seldom know what they want until you give them what they ask for.”
  • Source: Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is by Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg
Keywords: Appearance_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Want_quotes Give_quotes Ask_quotes Requirements_quotes

Gordon_Glegg

User Specifications

“If you are concerned in making the production of some article quicker, better or cheaper, you will naturally study how it is being done at the moment. It may seem paradoxical but the man least likely to help you is the operator in charge of the machine. The more 'down-to-earth' and 'practical' he considers himself the more 'unpractical' and 'up-in-the-air' he is likely to be from your point of view. He is too near the machine to know why it works. He only knows how it works.”
  • Source: Glegg, G. L. (1969). The Design of Design. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-511-79996-9. Chapter 1, page 12.
Keywords: Concern_quotes Production_quotes Quick_quotes Fast_quotes Better_quotes Cheap_quotes Study_quotes Paradox_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Operator_quotes Machine_quotes Practical_quotes Perspective_quotes Point_of_View_quotes Knowledge_quotes Unpractical_quotes DownToEarth_quotes UpInTheAir_quotes

Thomas_Gold

Knowledge Rules

“In no subject is there a rule, compliance with which will lead to new knowledge or better understanding. Skilful observations, ingenious ideas, cunning tricks, daring suggestions, laborious calculations, all these may be required to advance a subject. Occasionally the conventional approach in a subject has to be studiously followed; on other occasions it has to be ruthlessly disregarded. Which of these methods, or in what order they should be employed is generally unpredictable. Analogies drawn from the history of science are frequently claimed to be a guide; but, as with forecasting the next game of roulette, the existence of the best analogy to the present is no guide whatever to the future. The most valuable lesson to be learnt from the history of scientific progress is how misleading and strangling such analogies have been, and how success has come to those who ignored them.”
  • Source: Thomas Gold, 'Cosmology', in Arthur Beer (ed.), Vistas in Astronomy (1956), Vol. 2, 1722.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Subject_quotes Compliance_quotes Knowledge_quotes Understanding_quotes Skill_quotes Observation_quotes Idea_quotes Trick_quotes Courage_quotes Labor_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Creativity_quotes Prediction_quotes Analogy_quotes History_quotes Science_quotes Game_quotes Success_quotes Ingenious_quotes Cunning_quotes Daring_quotes Suggest_quotes Calculation_quotes Conventional_quotes Approach_quotes Order_quotes Follow_quotes Ruthless_quotes Disregard_quotes Method_quotes Unpredictable_quotes Guide_quotes Forecast_quotes Roulette_quotes Existence_quotes Present_quotes Future_quotes Value_quotes Learn_quotes Progress_quotes Mislead_quotes Strangle_quotes Ignore_quotes

Eugene_Grace

Initiative

“The man who has in him the stuff of which success is made is never afraid to accept responsibilities; then, when he gets responsibility, he doesn't regard it lightly; nor does he ever seek to shirk the consequences or attempt to blame anyone else when anything goes wrong. My chief difficulty in building up our huge organization is to find men able and willing to take and discharge responsibilities. So many men can only go to the point of doing routine duties; when given tasks requiring initiative and readiness to shoulder responsibility, they continually run to the boss to get instructions. I am constantly on the lookout for fellows who are not afraid to use their own judgment, and, although they may make quite a few mistakes, yet they at least show executive potentialities... Of course there must be more than willingness to accept responsibility and to exercise initiative; willingness must be accompanied by ability, knowledge, and the judgment which can come only from having thoroughly mastered one's business.”
Keywords: Man_quotes Stuff_quotes Success_quotes Fear_quotes Responsibility_quotes Regard_quotes Seek_quotes Consequence_quotes Attempt_quotes Blame_quotes Wrong_quotes Difficulty_quotes Build_quotes Organization_quotes Find_quotes Ability_quotes Willing_quotes Routine_quotes Duty_quotes Task_quotes Initiative_quotes Continuous_quotes Run_quotes Boss_quotes Instruction_quotes Lookout_quotes Judgment_quotes Knowledge_quotes Master_quotes Business_quotes Mistake_quotes Executive_quotes Potential_quotes Shirk_quotes

Yuval_Noah_Harari

Role of AI

“AI is taking up the role of both bureaucrats and mythmakers. AI systems know how to find and process data better than flesh-and-blood bureaucrats, and AI is also acquiring the ability to compose stories better than most humans.”
  • Source: Yuval Noah Harari writing in his book ‘Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI’. Published in 2024 by Random House. Kindle edition. Chapter 3 page 68. ISBN 978-0593734247.
Keywords: Artificial_Intelligence_quotes AI_quotes Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes Role_quotes Bureaucrat_quotes Mythmaker_quotes System_quotes Knowledge_quotes Find_quotes Process_quotes Data_quotes Better_quotes Flesh_quotes Blood_quotes Acquire_quotes Ability_quotes Compose_quotes Story_quotes Human_quotes

Stephen_Hawking

Correspondence to Reality

“I don't demand that a theory corresponds to reality because I don't know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I'm concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of experiment.”
  • Source: During a debate with Roger Penrose in 1994 at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, transcribed in The Nature of Space and Time (1996) by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Umiversity Press, p. 121.
Keywords: Theory_quotes Correspondence_quotes Reality_quotes Knowledge_quotes Testing_quotes Litmus_quotes Prediction_quotes Experiment_quotes Result_quotes

Tony_Hoare

All Problems Technical

“Basically, all problems are technical. If you know what you want to do and you have the necessary technical background, there is no point in making a great management problem out of it. Obviously, a certain amount of resource control and personnel work has to go on but that’s all. On the other hand, you might have a task which is difficult in that you don’t know what you have to do, and that even if you did you wouldn’t know how to do it. Since this is a very difficult task you can start out with the hypothesis that it will take a great number of people. Following down this slippery slope of reasoning, as soon as you have a very large number of people you have a very large management problem. But it all originated out of the fact that you didn’t know what you were doing, or how to do it.”
  • Source: C.A.R.Hoare in Ercoli, P., Bauer, F. L., Aron, J. D., & Hoare, C. A. R. (1970). Software Engineering Techniques: Report on a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Rome, Italy, 27th to 31 October 1969. (J. N. Buxton & B. Randell, Eds.). Retrieved from http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1969.PDF.
Keywords: Problem_quotes Technology_quotes Knowledge_quotes Management_quotes Resource_quotes Control_quotes Personnel_quotes Work_quotes Difficulty_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Effort_quotes Slippery_quotes Slope_quotes Reason_quotes Large_quotes Ignorance_quotes Want_quotes Necessary_quotes Background_quotes Task_quotes People_quotes Originate_quotes Fact_quotes

Douglas_Hofstadter

Artificial Intelligence Art Problems

“Artificial Intelligence, when it reaches the level of human intelligence — or even if it surpasses it — will still be plagued by the problems of art, beauty, and simplicity, and will run up against these things constantly in its own search for knowledge and understanding.”
  • Source: Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Written by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Basic Books, New York, NY. ISBN 13: 978-046502656-2. ISBN 10: 046502656-7. Chapter 20. Page 695.
Keywords: Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes Reach_quotes Level_quotes Human_quotes Surpass_quotes Plague_quotes Problem_quotes Art_quotes Beauty_quotes Simplicity_quotes Run_quotes Up_quotes Against_quotes Constant_quotes Search_quotes Knowledge_quotes Understanding_quotes Artificial_Intelligence_quotes

Gerald_Holton

Speculation

“...guided at that moment by a speculation below the level of consciousness, a result of an intimate knowledge... built up during his years of intense study, discussions, and experimentation.”
  • Note: The article is discussing Enrico Fermi's process to solve a physics experimentation problem that came to be known as the “Miricle of the Two Tables”.
Keywords: Guide_quotes Moment_quotes Speculation_quotes Below_quotes Level_quotes Consciousness_quotes Result_quotes Intimate_quotes Knowledge_quotes Built_quotes Year_quotes Intense_quotes Study_quotes Discussion_quotes Experiment_quotes Intuition_quotes

Grace_Hopper

Information Flood

“We're flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We've tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question.”
  • Source: Grace Hopper as quoted in "The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper" by Philip Schieber in OCLC Newsletter, No. 167 (March/April 1987).
Keywords: Information_quotes Knowledge_quotes Artificial_Intelligence_quotes Creativity_quotes Flood_quotes People_quotes Feed_quotes Processor_quotes Human_quotes Intelligence_quotes Forget_quotes Computer_quotes Ask_quotes New_quotes Question_quotes

Horace

Dare to Know

“Sapere aude. [Dare to Know]”
  • Source: Latin words written by Horace in the work entitled “First Book of Letters“ in 20 BCE.
  • Notes: The phrase was often used by Immanuel Kant to describe the ‘Age of Enlightenment’.
Keywords: Dare_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Sabine_Hossenfelder

Religion and Science

“I am not opposed to religious belief. Science has limits, and yet humanity has always sought meaning beyond those limits. Some do it by studying holy scripture, some meditate, some dig philosophy, some smoke funny things. That’s all fine with me, really. Provided that—and here’s the crux—your search for meaning respects scientific fact. If your belief conflicts with empirically confirmed knowledge, then you are not seeking meaning; you are delusional.”
  • Source: Hossenfelder, Sabine. Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (p. xvii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Keywords: Oppose_quotes Religion_quotes Belief_quotes Science_quotes Limit_quotes Humanity_quotes Seek_quotes Beyond_quotes Study_quotes Holy_quotes Scripture_quotes Meditation_quotes Dig_quotes Philosophy_quotes Smoke_quotes Funny_quotes Crux_quotes Search_quotes Meaning_quotes Respect_quotes Fact_quotes Conflict_quotes Empirical_quotes Confirm_quotes Knowledge_quotes Delusional_quotes

Understanding

“To me, my personal story is evidence that not only I but many of us have the desire to understand the universe — for no other reason than understanding the universe. Our thirst for knowledge is ubiquitous, in both individuals and societies. We want to understand, partly because understanding is useful, but also, I think, out of a primary need to make sense of ourselves and our place in this world.”
  • Source: Hossenfelder, Sabine. Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (p. 223). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Keywords: Personal_quotes Story_quotes Evidence_quotes Desire_quotes Understand_quotes Universe_quotes Thirst_quotes Knowledge_quotes Ubiquitous_quotes Individual_quotes Society_quotes Useful_quotes Primary_quotes Need_quotes Sense_quotes Self_quotes Place_quotes World_quotes

Edwin_Hubble

Scientific Judgments

“Science deals with judgments on which it is possible to obtain universal agreement. These judgments do not concern individual facts and events, but the invariable association of facts and events known as the laws of science. Agreement is secured by observation and experiment — impartial courts of appeal to which all men must submit if they wish to survive. The laws are grouped and explained by theories of ever increasing generality. The theories at first are ex post facto — merely plausible interpretations of existing bodies of data. However, they frequently lead to predictions that can be tested by experiments and observations in new fields, and, if the interpretations are verified, the theories are accepted as working hypotheses until they prove untenable. The essential requirements are agreement on the subject matter and the verification of predictions. These features insure a body of positive knowledge that can be transmitted from person to person, and that accumulates from generation to generation.”
  • Source: Edwin Powell Hubble. From manuscript on English Science in the Renaissance (1937), Edwin Hubble collection, Box 2, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. As cited by Norriss S. Hetherington in 'Philosophical Values and Observation in Edwin Hubble's Choice of a Model of the Universe', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1982), 13, No. 1, 41. (Hetherington comments parenthetically that the references to court, judgment and appeal may be attributable to his prior experiences as a Rhodes Scholar reading Roman law at Oxford, and to a year's practice as an attorney in Louisville, Kentucky.)
Keywords: Science_quotes Judgment_quotes Universal_quotes Agreement_quotes Survival_quotes Fact_quotes Association_quotes Event_quotes Law_quotes Observation_quotes Experiment_quotes Court_quotes Explanation_quotes Theory_quotes Generality_quotes Ex_Post_quotes Plausibility_quotes Interpretation_quotes Data_quotes Prediction_quotes Verification_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Falsification_quotes Proof_quotes Requirements_quotes Feature_quotes Positive_quotes Knowledge_quotes Transmission_quotes Accumulation_quotes Generation_quotes

Aldous_Huxley

Science without Art

“The peoples of the West no longer share a literature and a system of ancient wisdom. All that they now have in common is science and information. Now, science is knowledge, not wisdom; deals with quantities, not with the qualities of which we are immediately aware. In so far as we are enjoying and suffering beings, its words seem to us mostly irrelevant and beside the point. Moreover, these words are arranged without art; therefore possess no magical power and are incapable of propping or moulding the mind of the reader.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Words and Behavior within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: People_quotes West_quotes Sharing_quotes Literature_quotes System_quotes Ancient_quotes Wisdom_quotes Common_quotes Science_quotes Information_quotes Knowledge_quotes Deal_quotes Quantity_quotes Quality_quotes Aware_quotes Enjoy_quotes Suffering_quotes Being_quotes Relevance_quotes Point_quotes Word_quotes Arrangement_quotes Art_quotes Possess_quotes Magic_quotes Power_quotes Capability_quotes Prop_quotes Mold_quotes Mind_quotes Reading_quotes

Information Defeats Its Own Object

“In a certain sense our passion for information defeats its own object, which is increased knowledge of the world and other human beings. We are provided with a vastly greater supply of facts than our ancestors ever had an opportunity of considering. And yet our knowledge of other peoples is probably less thorough and intimate than theirs.”
  • ASource: ldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Words and Behavior within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: Sense_quotes Passion_quotes Information_quotes Defeat_quotes Object_quotes Increasing_quotes Knowledge_quotes World_quotes Human_quotes Being_quotes Provide_quotes Supply_quotes Fact_quotes Ancestor_quotes Opportunity_quotes Consider_quotes People_quotes Intimate_quotes

Carl_Jung

Lost Soul

“I did not consider that my soul cannot be the object of my judgment and knowledge; much more are my judgment and knowledge the objects of my soul... I had to become aware that I had lost my soul.”
  • Source: Written by Carl G. Jung in ‘The Red Book’, also known as ‘Liber Novus’, which was originally written from 1914 to 1930. It was first published in 2009 by W. W. Norton in a facsimile edition, complete with an English translation. The edition used here is the book ‘The Red Book: Liber Novus: A Reader's Edition’, written by C. G. Jung, edited with an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani; published by W. W. Norton in 2012; ISBN 978-0393089080; Page 128.
Keywords: Soul_quotes Consider_quotes Object_quotes Judgment_quotes Knowledge_quotes Become_quotes Awareness_quotes Lost_quotes

Knowledge of the Heart

“How can I attain the knowledge of the heart? You can attain this knowledge only by living your life to the full. You live your life fully if you also live what you have never yet lived, but have left for others to live or to think. You will say: ‘But I cannot live or think everything that others live or think.’ But you should say: ‘The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think.’”
  • Source: Written by Carl G. Jung in ‘The Red Book’, also known as ‘Liber Novus’, which was originally written from 1914 to 1930. It was first published in 2009 by W. W. Norton in a facsimile edition, complete with an English translation. The edition used here is the book ‘The Red Book: Liber Novus: A Reader's Edition’, written by C. G. Jung, edited with an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani; published by W. W. Norton in 2012; ISBN 978-0393089080; Page 133.
Keywords: Attain_quotes Knowledge_quotes Heart_quotes Living_quotes Life_quotes Full_quotes Never_quotes Yet_quotes Left_quotes Other_quotes Think_quotes Say_quotes Everything_quotes Still_quotes Could_quotes Should_quotes Thought_quotes

Daniel_Kahneman

Who Can We Trust

“We often interact with professionals who exercise their judgment with evident confidence, sometimes priding themselves on the power of their intuition. In a world rife with illusions of validity and skill, can we trust them? How do we distinguish the justified confidence of experts from the sincere overconfidence of professionals who do not know they are out of their depth? We can believe an expert who admits uncertainty but cannot take expressions of high confidence at face value. As I first learned on the obstacle field, people come up with coherent stories and confident predictions even when they know little or nothing. Overconfidence arises because people are often blind to their own blindness.”
  • Source: "Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence". New York Times. October 19, 2011.
Keywords: Interaction_quotes Professional_quotes Exercise_quotes Judgment_quotes Confidence_quotes Pride_quotes Power_quotes Intuition_quotes World_quotes Illusion_quotes Validity_quotes Skill_quotes Trust_quotes Distinguish_quotes Justification_quotes Expert_quotes Sincerity_quotes Depth_quotes Belief_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Expression_quotes Face_quotes Value_quotes Obstacle_quotes Coherence_quotes Story_quotes Prediction_quotes Knowledge_quotes Overconfidence_quotes Blind_quotes Bias_quotes

Immanuel_Kant

Systematic Unity Knowledge

“As systematic unity is what first raises ordinary knowledge to the rank of science, that is, makes a system out of a mere aggregate of knowledge, architectonic is the doctrine of the scientific in our knowledge, and therefore necessarily forms part of the doctrine of method.”
  • Source: Immanuel Kant, In 'The Transcendental Doctrine of Method', Critique of Pure Reason (2016), 653.
Keywords: System_quotes Unity_quotes Knowledge_quotes Science_quotes Aggregation_quotes Architectonic_quotes Doctrine_quotes Methodology_quotes

David_Kipping

Parent Reality Different

“If we concede that the possibility that our observations and understanding of physics may in fact be simulated... our knowledge of physics is wholly local to the simulation and may have no real bearing on the constraints that affect a parent reality, whose rules and limitations may be entirely different.”
  • Source: David Kipping from the paper “A Bayesian Approach to the Simulation Argument”, published 2020 in the journal ‘Universe’, volume 6, issue 8. DOI:10.3390/universe6080109. Online at https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/6/8/109 (2025).
Keywords: Concede_quotes Possibility_quotes Observation_quotes Understand_quotes Physics_quotes Fact_quotes Simulation_quotes Knowledge_quotes Whole_quotes Local_quotes Real_quotes Bearing_quotes Constraint_quotes Affect_quotes Parent_quotes Reality_quotes Rule_quotes Limit_quotes Entire_quotes Different_quotes

Kenneth_W_Kolence

Software Engineering Body of Knowledge

‘While software engineering may be based on good principles of design activities, it is not a physical science based engineering body of knowledge. So we have to build an engineering capability based on some other body of knowledge.”
Keywords: Software_Engineering_quotes Principle_quotes Design_quotes Activity_quotes Physical_quotes Science_quotes Engineering_quotes Body_quotes Knowledge_quotes Capability_quotes Software_quotes

Lawrence_M_Krauss

Biggest Misconception

“The biggest misconception about science is that it tells us what's true. It doesn't do that at all. It tells us what's false. And by knowing what's false, it's like Sherlock Holmes, you get rid of what's false and you hope what's left is closer to the truth. But you never know that any theory is absolutely true, and the only way to find out to make progress is to be able to rule things out. So falsifiability is very important.”
  • Source: Panel comments by Lawrence Krauss at Perimeter Institute's festival "Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future" in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, October 2009. Available online as Youtube video "Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carroll, Neil Turok & Others - Quantum to Cosmos" at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ftH1yig-HDU (accessed 2017) at about 27 minutes into the video.
Keywords: Big_quotes Misconception_quotes Science_quotes Truth_quotes False_quotes Knowledge_quotes Deduction_quotes Elimination_quotes Theory_quotes Absolute_quotes Find_quotes Progress_quotes Rule_quotes Falsification_quotes Importance_quotes Holmes(topic)_quotes Rid_quotes Hope_quotes Closer_quotes Out_quotes

Pierre-Simon_Laplace

System of Nature

“The present state of the system of nature is evidently a consequence of what it was in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence that at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of this universe, it could state the respective position, motions, and general affects of all these entities at any time in the past or future. Physical astronomy, the branch of knowledge that does the greatest honor to the human mind, gives us an idea, albeit imperfect, of what such an intelligence would be. The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their motions up to a certain point; and in order to determine the state of the system of these great bodies in past or future centuries, it suffices for the mathematician that their position and their velocity be given by observation for any moment in time. Man owes that advantage to the power of the instrument he employs, and to the small number of relations that it embraces in its calculations. But ignorance of the different causes involved in the production of events, as well as their complexity, taken together with the imperfection of analysis, prevents our reaching the same certainty about the vast majority of phenomena. Thus there are things that are uncertain for us, things more or less probable, and we seek to compensate for the impossibility of knowing them by determining their different degrees of likelihood. So it was that we owe to the weakness of the human mind one of the most delicate and ingenious of mathematical theories, the science of chance or probability.”
  • Source: Pierre-Simon Laplace, 'Recherches, 1º, sur l'Intégration des Équations Différentielles aux Différences Finies, et sur leur Usage dans la Théorie des Hasards' (1773, published 1776). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 8, 144-5, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 26.
Keywords: State_quotes Present_quotes System_quotes Nature_quotes Consequence_quotes Moment_quotes Precede_quotes Conceive_quotes Intelligence_quotes Instant_quotes Comprehension_quotes Relationship_quotes Universe_quotes Position_quotes Motion_quotes Causality_quotes Time_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes Astronomy_quotes Knowledge_quotes Humanity_quotes Mind_quotes Idea_quotes Imperfect_quotes Law_quotes Celestial_quotes Body_quotes Mass_quotes Distance_quotes Analysis_quotes Determine_quotes Century_quotes Mathematics_quotes Velocity_quotes Observation_quotes Advantage_quotes Power_quotes Instrument_quotes Calculation_quotes Ignorance_quotes Cause_quotes Production_quotes Event_quotes Complexity_quotes Certainty_quotes Majority_quotes Phenomena_quotes Probability_quotes Impossibility_quotes Likelihood_quotes Weakness_quotes Theory_quotes Chance_quotes

Problems of Probability

“The most important questions of life... are indeed for the most part only problems of probability. Strictly speaking it may even be said that nearly all our knowledge is problematical; and in the small number of things which we are able to know with certainty, even in the mathematical sciences themselves, the principal means for ascertaining truth — induction and analogy — are based on probabilities.”
Keywords: Important_quotes Question_quotes Life_quotes Part_quotes Problem_quotes Probability_quotes Near_quotes Knowledge_quotes Problematical_quotes Small_quotes Number_quotes Thing_quotes Ability_quotes Certainty_quotes Mathematics_quotes Science_quotes Principal_quotes Mean_quotes Ascertain_quotes Truth_quotes Induction_quotes Analogy_quotes Base_quotes

Henry_Louis_Mencken

Explanations

“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”
  • Source: In the article entitled 'The Divine Afflatus' by Henry Louis Mencken, published in the New York Evening Mail, 16 November 1917.
Keywords: Explanation_quotes Existence_quotes Time_quotes Knowledge_quotes Solution_quotes Problem_quotes Humanity_quotes Neat_quotes Plausible_quotes Wrong_quotes

Robert_K_Merton

Certified Knowledge

”The institutional goal of science is the extension of certified knowledge. The technical methods employed toward this end provide the relevant definition of knowledge: empirically confirmed and logically consistent predictions. The institutional imperatives (mores) derive from the goal and the methods. The entire structure of technical and moral norms implements the final objective. The technical norm of empirical evidence, adequate, valid and reliable, is a prerequisite for sustained true prediction; the technical norm of logical consistency, a prerequisite for systematic and valid prediction. The mores of science possess a methodologic rationale, but they are binding, not only because they are procedurally efficient, but because they are believed right and good. They are moral as well as technical prescriptions. Four sets of institutional imperatives – universalism, communism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism – comprise the ethos of modern science.”
  • Source: Robert King Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (1957), 552-3.
Keywords: Institution_quotes Goal_quotes Science_quotes Extension_quotes Certified_quotes Knowledge_quotes Technology_quotes Methodology_quotes Employment_quotes End_quotes Relevance_quotes Definition_quotes Empirical_quotes Confirmation_quotes Logic_quotes Consistency_quotes Prediction_quotes Imperative_quotes Derive_quotes Structure_quotes Morality_quotes Norms_quotes Implementation_quotes Final_quotes Objectives_quotes Evidence_quotes Adequate_quotes Validity_quotes Reliability_quotes Prerequisite_quotes Sustain_quotes Truth_quotes System_quotes Rational_quotes Mores_quotes Bind_quotes Procedure_quotes Efficiency_quotes Belief_quotes Right_quotes Good_quotes Prescription_quotes Universalism_quotes Communism_quotes Disinterest_quotes Skeptical_quotes Composition_quotes Ethos_quotes Modern_quotes

Mexican_Proverbs

Old Devil Knowledge

“The devil knows more by being old than by being the devil.”
  • Original Spanish: “Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.”
Keywords: Devil_quotes Knowledge_quotes Old_quotes

John_Stuart_Mill

Knowledge and Logic

“The distinction is that the science or knowledge of the particular subject-matter furnishes the evidence, while logic furnishes the principles and rules of the estimation of evidence.”
  • Source: John Stuart Mill, In A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (1843), Vol. 1, 11.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Logic_quotes Science_quotes Evidence_quotes Distinction_quotes Subject_quotes Furnish_quotes Principle_quotes Rule_quotes Estimate_quotes

Ernest_Nagel

Explanations

“It is the desire for explanations that are at once systematic and controllable by factual evidence that generates science; and it is the organization and classification of knowledge on the basis of explanatory principles that is the distinctive goal of the sciences.”
  • Source: Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (1961), 4.
Keywords: Desire_quotes Explanation_quotes System_quotes Control_quotes Fact_quotes Evidence_quotes Generation_quotes Science_quotes Organization_quotes Class_quotes Knowledge_quotes Principle_quotes Distinct_quotes Goal_quotes

David_E_Nye

History Not Rhetorical

“Yet it does not follow that historical arguments should be regarded as rhetorical exercises. To say that the past is not perfectly knowable does not make it infinitely malleable.”
  • Source: A book. Written by David E. Nye. Entitled 'Narratives and Spaces'. Published in 1997 by Univerity of Exeter Press, Exeter, UK. Hardback ISBN 0-85989-555-6. Paperback ISBN 0-85989-556-4. Introduction, page 7.
Keywords: History_quotes Argument_quotes Regard_quotes Exercise_quotes Past_quotes Perfect_quotes Knowledge_quotes Infinite_quotes Malleable_quotes

J_Robert_Oppenheimer

World Would Not Be the Same

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”
  • Source: Oppenheimer is quoting from the 1944 Prabhavananda and Isherwood translation of the Bhagavad Gita. The line quoted is spoken by Krishna, one of the major avatars of Vishnu; some assert that the passage would be better translated "I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds." online video at atomicarchive.com<nowiki>. Also an interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965), produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper; atomicarchive.com
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes World_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Change_quotes Same_quotes People_quotes Few_quotes Laughter_quotes Crying_quotes Silence_quotes Hindu_quotes Persuasion_quotes Prince_quotes Duty_quotes Impress_quotes Arm_quotes Death_quotes Destruction_quotes Suppose_quotes Thinking_quotes Way_quotes Form_quotes Become_quotes Bhagavad-Gita_quotes Vishnu_quotes

Dorothy_Parker

Calm and Storm

“They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.”
  • Source: Dorothy Parker. First printed in New York World, (20 January 1928) p. 13.
Keywords: Sick_quotes Calm_quotes Knowledge_quotes Storm_quotes Experience_quotes

Blaise_Pascal

Pascal's Wager

“A game is on, at the other end of this infinite distance, and heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason you cannot leave either; according to reason you cannot leave either undone... Yes, but wager you must; there is no option, you have embarked on it. So which will you have. Come. Since you must choose, let us see what concerns you least. You have two things to lose: truth and good, and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness. And your nature has two things to shun: error and misery. Your reason does not suffer by your choosing one more than the other, for you must choose. That is one point cleared. But your happiness? Let us weigh gain and loss in calling heads that God is. Reckon these two chances: if you win, you win all; if you lose, you lose naught. Then do not hesitate, wager that He is.”
  • Source: Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670), Section I, aphorism 223. In H. F. Stewart (ed.), Pascal's Pensées (1950), 117-119.
Keywords: Game_quotes Infinity_quotes Distance_quotes Head_quotes Tail_quotes Wager_quotes Chance_quotes Reason_quotes Option_quotes Embark_quotes Choice_quotes Concern_quotes Loss_quotes Truth_quotes Good_quotes Stake_quotes Will_quotes Knowledge_quotes Happiness_quotes Nature_quotes Shun_quotes Error_quotes Misery_quotes Suffering_quotes Gain_quotes God_quotes Deity_quotes Winning_quotes Hesitate_quotes Weigh_quotes

Manfred_Paul

Customer Knowledge

“The customer often does not know what he needs, and is sometimes cut off from knowing what is or what might be available.”
Keywords: Customer_quotes Client_quotes User_quotes Requirements_quotes Knowledge_quotes Availability_quotes Need_quotes Cut_quotes

Roger_Penrose

Self-Evident Truth

“Like so many works that have had a great impact on human thinking, it [Schrödinger's book ‘What is Life’] makes points that, once they are grasped, have a ring of almost self-evident truth; yet they are still blindly ignored by a disconcertingly large proportion of people who should know better.”

Keywords: Work_quotes Impact_quotes Human_quotes Thinking_quotes Point_quotes Grasp_quotes Ring_quotes Self-evident_quotes Truth_quotes Truism_quotes Life_quotes Blind_quotes Ignore_quotes Disconcerting_quotes Proportion_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Better_quotes Schrödinger(topic)_quotes

Alan_Perlis

Human Communication Limits

“A man can communicate with about five colleagues on a software project without too much difficulty. Likewise he can supervise about five people and know pretty well what they are doing. One would structure 120 people in three levels, in which no man is talking to more than about eight people, both across his level and up and down”
Keywords: Humanity_quotes Communication_quotes Colleague_quotes Software_quotes Project_quotes Difficulty_quotes Supervision_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Do_quotes Structure_quotes Level_quotes Talking_quotes Up_quotes Down_quotes Across_quotes

Software Engineering Competence

“It is a fact that there are software engineers around today who are quite competent. There are systems in many places which are quite stable and which provide magnificent service. It is also the case that there are large numbers of efforts, containing large numbers of programs and programmers, which have no software engineers on them, that is that people function as though they did not know how to build software.”
  • Note: Un-indexed continuation of quote: “I have a number of questions: 1. Is it possible to have software engineers in the numbers in which we need them, without formal software engineering education? 2. Is software engineering the same as Computer Science? 3. Is software engineering best provided by baccalaureate programs in universities? Or by adult education courses? Or by two year courses following the standard grade school education? 4. Do the people educated in these programs have a growing and future role in our society? 5. Will they be useful enough in a firm or government or university, and is their value such that they can distribute their talents in other activities, or must they always remain programmers? 6. What curriculum do we have in mind for software engineers, regardless of what level we choose to educate them? 7. Is software engineering really different from what we now call systems engineering?”
Keywords: Fact_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Competence_quotes System_quotes Place_quotes Stable_quotes Provide_quotes Magnificent_quotes Service_quotes Effort_quotes Large_quotesProgram_quotes Programmer_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Build_quotes Software_quotes Development_quotes Engineering_quotes

Programming Language

“A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.”
Keywords: Language_quotes Affect_quotes Way_quotes Programming_quotes Knowledge_quotes Think_quotes Worth_quotes

Programming Special Cases

“In programming, everything we do is a special case of something more general - and often we know it too quickly.”
Keywords: Exception_quotes Special_Case_quotes Programming_quotes Do_quotes Requirements_quotes Generality_quotes Knowledge_quotes Quick_quotes

Learning Knowledge and Programming

“You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.”
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Knowledge_quotes Learning_quotes Sure_quotes Certainty_quotes Writing_quotes Teaching_quotes Programming_quotes

Computing Fun

“I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.”
  • Source: Quoted in The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman and Julie Sussman (McGraw-Hill, 2nd edition, 1996).
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Importance_quotes Computer_Science_quotes Computing_quotes Fun_quotes Pay_quotes Customer_quotes Shaft_quotes Complaint_quotes Serious_quotes Responsibility_quotes Success_quotes Error_quotes Error-Free_quotes Perfect_quotes Machine_quotes Quality_quotes Defect_quotes Stretch_quotes Innovation_quotes New_quotes Direction_quotes House_quotes Field_quotes Loss_quotes Sense_quotes Missionary_quotes Evangelism_quotes Bible_quotes Salesman_quotes World_quotes Knowledge_quotes Learning_quotes Feel_quotes Key_quotes Hand_quotes Intelligence_quotes Ability_quotes Sight_quotes First_quotes Extraordinary_quotes Science_quotes Learn_quotes

Knowledge and Wisdom

“Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.”
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Wisdom_quotes Extension_quotes Humanity_quotes Reach_quotes Computer_quotes Chopsticks_quotes

Steven_Pinker

Neurons to Consciousness

“None of us has a brain that can actually put us in touch with reality unaided with truth. I've just shown you a bunch of gadgetry that responds to things that are essential to our survival, things that prevent us from falling off cliffs and bumping into trees. But they don't actually correspond to any clear description of the world as it is. So we have, for example, circuitry that responds to the edges rather than the physical distribution of light, because edges are important, that's where objects leave off and their backgrounds begin. Moreover, they can be fooled, as I did with each one of you. That since our neural circuitry does consist of a mechanism, not a pipeline to the truth or a window onto objective reality. That is naïve realism we know is false because there are illusions. You can't just trust your senses. That means we need some way of augmenting the faculties that nature gave us to make our beliefs as accurate as possible. Which of course is why the early modern philosophers made such a big deal of visual illusions. They said you can't just open your eyes and see the world as it is. Look at all these illusions. So what we do, what gives some of us confidence that our beliefs are objectively true is that they are part of an institutional infrastructure of testing and criticism and logic and determining which hypotheses withstand criticism and attempts at refutation. Devising exotic arrangements of reality to reflect the way reality is put together, namely experiments. Thanks to this huge network of minds, each one of them making up for deficits of all the others, we like to think that we have a collective grasp on truth that none of us individually can have. But of course, it's always fallible. The religious beliefs I think were actually pretty reasonable hypotheses in earlier states of our collective knowledge. Even Richard Dawkins said that before Darwin he probably would have been a creationist because the cosmic engineer was the only available explanation for the obvious adaptive complexity of living things. I would add that prior to the advent of modern neuroscience I probably would have believed in souls because there was no better explanation for phenomena such as that people respond intelligently to their environments. When you dream some part of you is up and about the world while your body is in bed the whole time. That seems like there must be some part of you that can leave your body. When a person suddenly dies some kind of animating force no longer seems to be animating the body that was there just a few minutes ago. So the soul hypothesis is not a stupid or irrational belief, nor is creationism if it's the best that you have. Now, of course, we can do better. But doing better in part depends not just on this cumulative weight of evidence and argument. But because few of us can actually reconstruct the scientific observations that justify the theory of natural selection or the theory of neural networks, all of us, at least a little bit, take it on faith in the following sense; that there is a community that you trust enough because when they have been challenged to defend their beliefs they can connect them to reality. They have shown that it isn't magic. That they have given reason to trust them because they've convinced you that they're the mores of their culture, of their scientific culture, designed so that they will find true things and weed out false things. If you don't have a degree of solidarity or trust, if you think that scientists are all in cahoots with big corporations or are trying to tear down all faith and values and meaning and you simply refuse to follow through the very long chain of deduction that connects the claims to the experiments, then you'll naturally reject it just because it's not your tribe. For you and me scientists are our tribe and we're apt to give them some credibility, indeed some credulousness, knowing that if ever challenged it would be repaid. But unless you trace that through it can be all too easy to reject the conclusions of science, and indeed a number of studies have shown that contrary to the common belief that people believe in falsehoods, such as that vaccines cause autism or that humans were created five thousand years ago or that the burning of fossil fuels has no effect on global temperatures, it turns out that people with those beliefs that we have every reason to believe are false are no more scientifically naïve on average than people that have beliefs that are scientifically justified. You give a test on evolution to a bunch of people who believe in evolution, give it to a bunch of creationists, there's not much difference in how well they score. In fact, often they are equal. Likewise, the typical grasp of climate science among someone who signs on to the scientific consensus is not much better than the adamant deniers. That kind of dashes the hope that simply by increasing the quality of science education you will lead people to more accurate beliefs. There, in addition, has to be a dissociation of who you think are the good guys and who are the bad guys from who has the best claims to truth. That's what it depends on.”
Keywords: Accuracy_quotes Adament_quotes Adaptability_quotes Addition_quotes Advent_quotes Aid_quotes Animate_quotes Argue_quotes Arrangement_quotes Attempt_quotes Augment_quotes Autism_quotes Availability_quotes Background_quotes Bad_quotes Bed_quotes Belief_quotes Best_quotes Big_quotes Body_quotes Brain_quotes Bump_quotes Bunch_quotes Burn_quotes Cahoot_quotes Chain_quotes Challenge_quotes Circuit_quotes Claim_quotes Clear_quotes Cliff_quotes Climate_quotes Collective_quotes Complexity_quotes Common_quotes Community_quotes Conclusion_quotes Confidence_quotes Connection_quotes Consensus_quotes Consist_quotes Contrary_quotes Convince_quotes Cooperation_quotes Corporation_quotes Correspondence_quotes Cosmic_quotes Creationism_quotes Credibility_quotes Criticism_quotes Culture_quotes Cumulative_quotes Dash_quotes Deal_quotes Death_quotes Deception_quotes Deduction_quotes Defence_quotes Deficit_quotes Degree_quotes Deny_quotes Dependence_quotes Description_quotes Design_quotes Determine_quotes Devise_quotes Differences_quotes Dissociation_quotes Distribution_quotes Dreaming_quotes Early_quotes Easy_quotes Edge_quotes Education_quotes Effect_quotes Engineer_quotes Environment_quotes Essential_quotes Evidence_quotes Evolution_quotes Exotic_quotes Experiment_quotes Explanation_quotes Eye_quotes Faculty_quotes Faith_quotes Fall_quotes Fallible_quotes False_quotes Few_quotes Find_quotes Follow_quotes Fool_quotes Force_quotes Fossil_quotes Fuel_quotes Gadget_quotes Global_quotes Good_quotes Grasp_quotes Guy_quotes Huge_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Illusion_quotes Importance_quotes Increasing_quotes Individual_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Institution_quotes Intelligence_quotes Irrational_quotes Justification_quotes Knowledge_quotes Leave_quotes Life_quotes Light_quotes Logic_quotes Long_quotes Magic_quotes Meaning_quotes Mechanism_quotes Mind_quotes Modern_quotes Moral_quotes Naïve_quotes Nature_quotes Natural_Selection_quotes Network_quotes Neural_quotes Neuroscience_quotes Object_quotes Objectivity_quotes Observation_quotes Obvious_quotes Part_quotes People_quotes Perception_quotes Phenomena_quotes Philosophy_quotes Physical_quotes Pipeline_quotes Possibility_quotes Prehistoric_quotes Prevent_quotes Reality_quotes Reason_quotes Reconstruct_quotes Reflection_quotes Refuse_quotes Refutation_quotes Rejection_quotes Religion_quotes Repay_quotes Respond_quotes Science_quotes Scientist_quotes Score_quotes Seem_quotes Selection_quotes Sense_quotes Show_quotes Sight_quotes Solidarity_quotes Soul_quotes State_quotes Study_quotes Stupidity_quotes Survival_quotes Tear_quotes Temperature_quotes Testing_quotes Theory_quotes Thinking_quotes Time_quotes Touch_quotes Trace_quotes Tree_quotes Tribal_quotes Trust_quotes Truth_quotes Try_quotes Typical_quotes Unaided_quotes Vaccine_quotes Value_quotes Visual_quotes Weed_quotes Weight_quotes Whole_quotes Window_quotes Withstand_quotes World_quotes

Experts

“Experts are invaluable and are usually rewarded in esteem and wealth. But our reliance on experts puts temptation in their path. The experts can allude to a world of wonders — occult forces, angry gods, magical potions — that is inscrutable to mere mortals but reachable through their services. Tribal shamans are flimflam artists who supplement their considerable practical knowledge with stage magic, drug-induced trances, and other cheap tricks. Like the Wizard of Oz, they have to keep their beseechers from looking at the man behind the curtain, and that conflicts with the disinterested search for the truth.”
  • 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 5 Section: Ecological Intelligence.
Keywords: Expert_quotes Invaluable_quotes Reward_quotes Esteem_quotes Wealth_quotes Reliance_quotes Temptation_quotes Path_quotes Allude_quotes World_quotes Wonder_quotes Occult_quotes Anger_quotes God_quotes Magic_quotes Inscrutable_quotes Mortality_quotes Reach_quotes Service_quotes Tribal_quotes Shaman_quotes Flimflam_quotes Art_quotes Supplement_quotes Practical_quotes Knowledge_quotes Stage_quotes Drug_quotes Induce_quotes Trance_quotes Cheap_quotes Trick_quotes Wizard_quotes Oz_quotes Beseech_quotes Look_quotes Behind_quotes Curtain_quotes Conflict_quotes Search_quotes Truth_quotes Disinterest_quotes

Robert_M_Pirsig

Traditional Scientific Method

“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.”
  • Source: Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), 251.
Keywords: Tradition_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Science_quotes Best_quotes Hindsight_quotes Sight_quotes Good_quotes Testing_quotes Truth_quotes Thinking_quotes Knowledge_quotes Tell_quotes Go_quotes Method_quotes

Max_Planck

Experiments

“Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.”
  • Source: Max Planck, As quoted in Advances in Biochemical Psychopharmacology, Vol. 25 (1980), p. 3
Keywords: Experiment_quotes Knowledge_quotes Disposal_quotes Poetry_quotes Imagination_quotes

Plato

Opinion Explanation

“All those who have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation, nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge.”
Keywords: Right_quotes Opinion_quotes Anything_quotes Explanation_quotes Truth_quotes Anywhere_quotes Find_quotes Exist_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Michael_Polanyi

Second Hand Knowledge and Authority

“The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.”
  • Source: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (1958), 208.
Keywords: Amount_quotes Knowledge_quotes Justification_quotes Evidence_quotes Direct_quotes Availability_quotes Large_quotes Overwhelm_quotes Proportion_quotes Fact_quotes Belief_quotes Second-Hand_quotes Trust_quotes Majority_quotes Authority_quotes People_quotes Acknowledge_quotes Stand_quotes Few_quotes

Vast Knowledge First and Second Hand

“Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.”
  • Source: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
Keywords: Vast_quotes Knowledge_quotes Tiny_quotes Fragment_quotes Accredit_quotes Dependence_quotes Turn_quotes Complexity_quotes Organization_quotes Member_quotes Community_quotes Science_quotes Judgment_quotes Validity_quotes Value_quotes First-Hand_quotes Reliance_quotes View_quotes Acceptance_quotes Second-Hand_quotes Authority_quotes People_quotes Scientist_quotes Number_quotes Small_quotes Fellow_quotes Eventual_quotes Recognition_quotes Return_quotes Relationship_quotes Chain_quotes Transmit_quotes Mutual_quotes Direct_quotes Indirect_quotes System_quotes Extend_quotes Past_quotes Master_quotes Derive_quotes Allegiance_quotes Common_quotes Tradition_quotes Carry_quotes Particular_quotes Strand_quotes

Karl_Popper

We Do Not Know

“We do not know: we can only guess.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub). New York, NY: Routledge. Page 278.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Guess_quotes

Theory Personality

“Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 299.
Keywords: Understanding_quotes Theory_quotes Common_quotes Humanity_quotes Personality_quotes Knowledge_quotes System_quotes Disposition_quotes Prediction_quotes Differences_quotes Situation_quotes Infinity_quotes Possibility_quotes Variety_quotes Full_quotes Possible_quotes

Scientific Knowledge

“If the picture of the world which modern science draws comes anywhere near the truth — in other words, if we have anything like ‘scientific knowledge’ — then the conditions obtaining almost everywhere in the universe make the discovery of structural laws of the kind we are seeking — and thus the attainment of ‘scientific knowledge’ — almost impossible. For almost all regions of the universe are filled by chaotic radiation, and almost all the rest by matter in a likewise chaotic state. In spite of this, science has been miraculously successful in proceeding toward what I think should be regarded as its aim. This strange fact cannot, I think, be explained without proving too much. But it can encourage us to pursue that aim, even though we may not get any further encouragement to believe that we can actually attain it; neither from metaphysical realism nor from any other source.”
  • Source: Realism and the Aim of Science: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1983, p. 146, ISBN 0415084008
Keywords: Picture_quotes World_quotes Modern_quotes Science_quotes Truth_quotes Knowledge_quotes Condition_quotes Obtain_quotes Universe_quotes Discovery_quotes Structure_quotes Kind_quotes Seek_quotes Attain_quotes Impossibility_quotes Region_quotes Chaos_quotes Radiation_quotes Matter_quotes Miracle_quotes Success_quotes Progress_quotes Aim_quotes Strange_quotes Fact_quotes Explanation_quotes Proof_quotes Encouragement_quotes Pursuit_quotes Belief_quotes Metaphysics_quotes Realism_quotes Source_quotes Law_quotes

James_Randi

Science Is Best Defined

“Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.”
  • Source: James Randi, The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer (1993), Page 66.
Keywords: Science_quotes Definition_quotes Careful_quotes Logic_quotes Search_quotes Knowledge_quotes Aspect_quotes Universe_quotes Obtain_quotes Examination_quotes Availability_quotes Evidence_quotes Subject_quotes Correction_quotes Improvement_quotes Discovery_quotes Better_quotes Magic_quotes Work_quotes Discipline_quotes

Hans_Reichenbach

Picture of Scientific Method

“The picture of scientific method drafted by modern philosophy is very different from traditional conceptions. Gone is the ideal of a universe whose course follows strict rules, a predetermined cosmos that unwinds itself like an unwinding clock. Gone is the ideal of the scientist who knows the absolute truth. The happenings of nature are like rolling dice rather than like revolving stars; they are controlled by probability laws, not by causality, and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet. He can tell you only his best posits — he never knows beforehand whether they will come true. He is a better gambler, though, than the man at the green table, because his statistical methods are superior. And his goal is staked higher — the goal of foretelling the rolling dice of the cosmos. If he is asked why he follows his methods, with what title he makes his predictions, he cannot answer that he has an irrefutable knowledge of the future; he can only lay his best bets. But he can prove that they are best bets, that making them is the best he can do — and if a man does his best, what else can you ask of him?”
  • Source: Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951, 1973), 248-9. Collected in James Louis Jarrett and Sterling M. McMurrin (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy: A Book of Readings (1954), 376.
Keywords: Picture_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Modern_quotes Philosophy_quotes Differences_quotes Tradition_quotes Ideal_quotes Universe_quotes Causality_quotes Course_quotes Strict_quotes Rule_quotes Predetermine_quotes Cosmos_quotes Unwind_quotes Clock_quotes Science_quotes Absolute_quotes Certainty_quotes Truth_quotes Nature_quotes Roll_quotes Dice_quotes Probability_quotes Revolve_quotes Star_quotes Control_quotes Law_quotes Gambler_quotes Prophet_quotes Prediction_quotes Posit_quotes Knowledge_quotes Beforehand_quotes True_quotes Statistics_quotes Superior_quotes Goal_quotes Stake_quotes High_quotes Foretell_quotes Methodology_quotes Title_quotes Answer_quotes Irrefutability_quotes Future_quotes Bet_quotes Proof_quotes Best_quotes Ask_quotes Conception_quotes Scientist_quotes Man_quotes

Rittel_and_Webber

Problem Defining Problems

“By now we are all beginning to realize that one of the most intractable problems is that of defining problems (of knowing what distinguishes an observed condition from a desired condition) and of locating problems (finding where in the complex causal networks the trouble really lies).”
Keywords: Begin_quotes Realization_quotes Intractable_quotes Problem_quotes Define_quotes Knowledge_quotes Distinguish_quotes Observation_quotes Condition_quotes Locate_quotes Complexity_quotes Causality_quotes Network_quotes Trouble_quotes Desire_quotes

Will_Rogers

Great Time to Know Something

"This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something."
  • Source: Will Rogers. Daily Telegram #1611, Mr. Rogers Thinks Its Time That A Smart Man Came Along (21 September 1931) in Rogers, W. P. A. (1979). Will Rogers’ Daily Telegrams: Volume 3: The Hoover Years 1931-1933. (J. M. Smallwood & S. K. Gragert, Eds.) (Vol. 3).
Keywords: Great_quotes Time_quotes World_quotes Humanity_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Everyone is Ignorant

"You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."
  • Source: Will Rogers. From Nuts To The Soup (31 August 1924); published in The New York Times.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Ignorance_quotes Differences_quotes Subject_quotes Everybody_quotes

Donald_Rumsfeld

Unknown Unknowns

“...There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know... It is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”
Keywords: Known_quotes Knowledge_quotes Unknown_quotes Difficult_quotes

Bertrand_Russell

Persecution Used In Theology

“Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So, whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”
  • Source: Bertrand Russell, In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Keywords: Persecution_quotes Theology_quotes Arithmetic_quotes Mathematics_quotes Knowledge_quotes Opinion_quotes Anger_quotes Differences_quotes Guard_quotes Examination_quotes Belief_quotes Beyond_quotes Evidence_quotes Warrant_quotes

Exact Science Approximate

“Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man. Every careful measurement in science is always given with the probable error ... every observer admits that he is likely wrong and knows about how much wrong he is likely to be.”
  • Source: Bertrand Russell, In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 42
Keywords: Paradox_quotes Seem_quotes Exact_quotes Science_quotes Domination_quotes Idea_quotes Approximation_quotes Humanity_quotes Truth_quotes Safe_quotes Inference_quotes Inexact_quotes Careful_quotes Measurement_quotes Probability_quotes Error_quotes Observation_quotes Wrong_quotes Knowledge_quotes Man_quotes

Significance of Fact

“The significance of a fact is relative to [the general body of scientific] knowledge. To say that a fact is significant in science, is to say that it helps to establish or refute some general law; for science, though it starts from observation of the particular, is not concerned essentially with the particular, but with the general. A fact, in science, is not a mere fact, but an instance. In this the scientist differs from the artist, who, if he deigns to notice facts at all, is likely to notice them in all their particularity.”
  • Source: Bertrand Russell, In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 38.
Keywords: Significance_quotes Fact_quotes Relative_quotes Generality_quotes Body_quotes Science_quotes Knowledge_quotes Establish_quotes Refutation_quotes Law_quotes Start_quotes Observation_quotes Particular_quotes Concern_quotes Essential_quotes Instance_quotes Differences_quotes Art_quotes Design_quotes General_quotes Notice_quotes

Pure Mathematics

“Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true. Both these points would belong to applied mathematics. We start, in pure mathematics, from certain rules of inference, by which we can infer that if one proposition is true, then so is some other proposition. These rules of inference constitute the major part of the principles of formal logic. We then take any hypothesis that seems amusing and deduce its consequences. If our hypothesis is about anything, and not about some one or more particular things, then our deductions constitute mathematics. Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate.”
  • Source: “Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics”, published in 1901 within International Monthly, Vol. 4. later published as the essay “Mathematics and the Metaphysicians” within the book “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays” by Bertrand Russell published in 1917 by George Allen & Unwin, London, England.
Keywords: Pure_quotes Mathematics_quotes Consist_quotes Entire_quotes Assertion_quotes Effect_quotes Proposal_quotes True_quotes Essential_quotes Discussion_quotes First_quotes Mention_quotes Suppose_quotes Point_quotes Belong_quotes Application_quotes Certainty_quotes Rule_quotes Inference_quotes Constitute_quotes Major_quotes Part_quotes Principle_quotes Formal_quotes Logic_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Amuse_quotes Deduction_quotes Consequence_quotes Causality_quotes Particular_quotes Definition_quotes Subject_quotes Knowledge_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Talking_quotes Speak_quotes People_quotes Puzzle_quotes Confusion_quotes Begin_quotes Comfort_quotes Accuracy_quotes

Truth and Thought

“If truth consists in a correspondence of thought with something outside thought, thought can never know when truth has been attained.”
  • Source: Bertrand Russell, (1912), In the book entitled “The Problems of Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell. Second edition published in 1998 (originally published in 1912) by Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. Chapter 12. ISBN 978-0-19-285423-0. Online at <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827> retrieved 2022.
Keywords: Truth_quotes Thought_quotes Consist_quotes Correspondence_quotes Outside_quotes Knowledge_quotes Attain_quotes

Coherence Truth Test

“Coherence cannot be accepted as giving the meaning of truth, though it is often a most important test of truth after a certain amount of truth has become known.”
  • Source: Bertrand Russell, (1912), In the book entitled “The Problems of Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell. Second edition published in 1998 (originally published in 1912) by Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. Chapter 12. ISBN 978-0-19-285423-0. Online at <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827> retrieved 2022.
Keywords: Coherence_quotes Accept_quotes Meaning_quotes Test_quotes Truth_quotes Amount_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Carl_Sagan

Science Arouses Wonder

“Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.”
  • Source: Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), 6.
Keywords: Science_quotes Arise_quotes Soar_quotes Wonder_quotes Pseudoscience_quotes Sparse_quotes Poor_quotes Popularity_quotes Abandon_quotes Ecology_quotes Niche_quotes Prompt_quotes Fill_quotes Wide_quotes Understanding_quotes Claim_quotes Knowledge_quotes Requirements_quotes Adequate_quotes Evidence_quotes Before_quotes Acceptance_quotes Room_quotes

Technology Decisions

“...we live in an age based on science and technology with formidable technological powers... and if we don't understand it, by we I mean the general public, if it's something that - 'Oh, I'm not good at that. I don't know anything about it' then who is making all the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in?”
  • Source: Carl Sagen speaking in an video entitled 'CARL SAGEN - A Way of Thinking' posted on YouTube at https://youtu.be/J1cNaFG1VII , at 00:00:22 in video. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
Keywords: Life_quotes Age_quotes Base_quotes Science_quotes Technology_quotes Formidable_quotes Power_quotes Understanding_quotes Generality_quotes Public_quotes Good_quotes Knowledge_quotes Decision_quotes Determine_quotes Kind_quotes Future_quotes Children_quotes

Science Thinking

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of the human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we are up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along. It is a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough he said to enshrine some rights in a constitution or bill of rights. The people had to be educated and they have to practice their skepticism and education. Otherwise we don't run the government. The government runs us.”
  • Source: Carl Sagen speaking in an video entitled 'CARL SAGEN - A Way of Thinking' posted on YouTube at https://youtu.be/J1cNaFG1VII , at 00:01:25 in video. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
Keywords: Science_quotes Body_quotes Knowledge_quotes Thinking_quotes Truth_quotes Skeptical_quotes Interrogate_quotes Understanding_quotes Human_quotes Fallibility_quotes Question_quotes Tell_quotes Authority_quotes Grab_quotes Charlatan_quotes Political_quotes Religion_quotes Amble_quotes Jefferson_quotes Lay_quotes Stress_quotes Great_quotes Enshrine_quotes Rights_quotes Constitution_quotes Bill_quotes People_quotes Education_quotes Practice_quotes Run_quotes Government_quotes Way_quotes

George_Sarton

Scientific Progress

“No history of civilization can be tolerably complete which does not give considerable space to the explanation of scientific progress. If we had any doubts about this, it would suffice to ask ourselves what constitutes the essential difference between our and earlier civilizations. Throughout the course of history, in every period, and in almost every country, we find a small number of saints, of great artists, of men of science. The saints of today are not necessarily more saintly than those of a thousand years ago; our artists are not necessarily greater than those of early Greece; they are more likely to be inferior; and of course, our men of science are not necessarily more intelligent than those of old; yet one thing is certain, their knowledge is at once more extensive and more accurate. The acquisition and systematization of positive knowledge is the only human activity which is truly cumulative and progressive. Our civilization is essentially different from earlier ones, because our knowledge of the world and of ourselves is deeper, more precise, and more certain, because we have gradually learned to disentangle the forces of nature, and because we have contrived, by strict obedience to their laws, to capture them and to divert them to the gratification of our own needs.”
  • Source: George (Alfred Léon) Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (1927), Vol. 1, 3-4.
Keywords: History_quotes Civilization_quotes Tolerance_quotes Completion_quotes Explanation_quotes Science_quotes Progress_quotes Doubt_quotes Sufficient_quotes Constitute_quotes Essential_quotes Differences_quotes Early_quotes Course_quotes Period_quotes Country_quotes Small_quotes Saint_quotes Great_quotes Art_quotes Intelligence_quotes Old_quotes Year_quotes Greece_quotes Inferior_quotes Knowledge_quotes Extension_quotes Accuracy_quotes Acquire_quotes System_quotes Positive_quotes Humanity_quotes Activity_quotes True_quotes Cumulative_quotes World_quotes Depth_quotes Precision_quotes Certainty_quotes Gradual_quotes Learning_quotes Disentangle_quotes Force_quotes Nature_quotes Contrive_quotes Strict_quotes Obedience_quotes Law_quotes Capture_quotes Divergence_quotes Gratify_quotes Need_quotes Progressive_quotes

Erwin_Schrödinger

Observer Instruments

“The observer is never entirely replaced by instruments; for if he were, he could obviously obtain no knowledge whatsoever.”
  • Source: Erwin Schrödinger in the book “Mind and Matter”, chapter 6. Contained within the book “What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches”. Published in 1992 and reprinted in 2013 by Cambridge University Press, New York, NY. ISBN: 9781107604667. Online at <http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/schrodinger-what-is-life-mind-matter-auto-sketches.pdf> retrieved 2024. Note: “Mind and Matter” originally published separately in 1944.
Keywords: Observer_quotes Entire_quotes Replace_quotes Instrument_quotes Obvious_quotes Obtain_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Objective Nature

“While the direct sensual perception of the phenomenon tells us nothing as to its objective physical nature (or what we usually call so) and has to be discarded from the outset as a source of information, yet the theoretical picture we obtain eventually rests entirely on a complicated array of various informations, all obtained by direct sensual perception. It resides upon them, it is pieced together from them, yet it cannot really be said to contain them. In using the picture we usually forget about them, except in the quite general way that we know our idea of a light-wave is not a haphazard invention of a crank but is based on experiment.”
  • Source: Erwin Schrödinger in the book “Mind and Matter”, chapter 6. Contained within the anthology “What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches”. Published in 1992 and reprinted in 2013 by Cambridge University Press, New York, NY. ISBN: 9781107604667. Online at <http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/schrodinger-what-is-life-mind-matter-auto-sketches.pdf> retrieved 2024. Note: “Mind and Matter” originally published separately in 1944.
Keywords: Direct_quotes Sensual_quotes Perception_quotes Tell_quotes Nothing_quotes Objective_quotes Physical_quotes Nature_quotes Call_quotes Discard_quotes Outset_quotes Source_quotes Information_quotes Theoretical_quotes Picture_quotes Obtain_quotes Eventual_quotes Rest_quotes Entire_quotes Complicated_quotes Array_quotes Reside_quotes Piece_quotes Together_quotes Say_quotes Contain_quotes Forget_quotes Except_quotes General_quotes Way_quotes Knowledge_quotes Idea_quotes Light_quotes Wave_quotes Haphazard_quotes Invention_quotes Crank_quotes Base_quotes Experiment_quotes

Mary_Shelley

Acquirement of Knowledge Dangerous

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge.”
  • Source: A book. Written by Mary Shelley. Entitled Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Originally published in 1818 in London, England. Chapter 4. Also in Shelley, M. (2017). Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds. (D. H. Guston, E. Finn, & J. S. Robert, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved 2022 from https://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=628778, ISBN 9780262533287.
Keywords: Learning_quotes Precept_quotes Example_quotes Danger_quotes Acquire_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Herbert_Simon

Understanding Problems

“Understanding problems in domains that have rich semantics requires prior knowledge of the domain.”
Keywords: Understanding_quotes Problem_quotes Domain_quotes Rich_quotes Semantic_quotes Requirements_quotes Prior_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Long Definition of Design

“The ‘inner environment' of the design problem is represented by a set of given alternatives of action. The alternatives may be given in extenso: more commonly they are specified in terms of command variables that have defined domains. The ‘outer environment' is represented by a set of parameters, which may be known with certainty or only in terms of a probability distribution. The goals for adaptation of inner to outer environment are defined by a utility function a function, usually scalar, of the command variables and environmental parameters perhaps supplemented by a number of constraints (inequalities, say, between functions of the command variables and environmental parameters). The optimization problem is to find an admissible set of values of the command variables, compatible with the constraints, that maximize the utility function for the given values of the environmental parameters. (In the probabilistic case we might say, 'maximize the expected value of the utility function,' for instance, instead of 'maximize the utility function.')”
Keywords: Inner_quotes Environment_quotes Design_quotes Problem_quotes Representation_quotes Set_quotes Alternative_quotes Action_quotes Extenso_quotes Common_quotes Specification_quotes Term_quotes Command_quotes Variable_quotes Definition_quotes Domain_quotes Outer_quotes Parameter_quotes Knowledge_quotes Certainty_quotes Probability_quotes Distribution_quotes Goal_quotes Adaptation_quotes Utility_quotes Function_quotes Scalar_quotes Supplement_quotes Number_quotes Constraint_quotes Maximum_quotes Value_quotes Compatibility_quotes Case_quotes Expectation_quotes Inequality_quotes Optimization_quotes Admissible_quotes

Saul-Paul_Sirag

Heart of Science

“The essential point in science is not a complicated mathematical formalism or a ritualized experimentation. Rather the heart of science is a kind of shrewd honesty that springs from really wanting to know what the hell is going on!”
  • Source: Words of Saul-Paul Sirag as reported in the book “Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics” written by Nick Herbert, page 268, published by Doubleday in 1985. ISBN 978-0385187046.
Keywords: Essential_quotes Point_quotes Science_quotes Complexity_quotes Mathematics_quotes Formal_quotes Ritual_quotes Experiment_quotes Heart_quotes Shrewd_quotes Honesty_quotes Spring_quotes Want_quotes Knowledge_quotes Hell_quotes Go_quotes On_quotes

Socrates

All I Know Is That I Know Nothing

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what Justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy.”
  • Source: Socrates, as quoted by Plato in ‘The Republic’, book I, 354b (circa 380 BCE).
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Wisdom_quotes Justice_quotes Virtue_quotes Happiness_quotes Unhappy_quotes Person_quotes

Right Opinion and Knowledge

“...right opinion and knowledge are different. There are few things that I should claim to know, but that at least is among them, whatever else is.”
  • Source: Socrates, as quoted by Plato in 'Meno', 98b (circa 402 BCE).
Keywords: Right_quotes Knowledge_quotes Opinion_quotes Claim_quote Different_quotes

Solomon

Wisdom and Grief

“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
  • Source: Solomon (or Kohelet). Ecclesiastes 1:18, King James Version of the Bible
Keywords: Wisdom_quotes Grief_quotes Knowledge_quotes Sorrow_quotes Learning_quotes]] Increase_quotes

Albert_Speer

Position to Know

“For being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences - from the very beginning.”
  • Source: From the book "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer, published 1970 by Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4. Chapter 2, page 19.
Keywords: Being_quotes Position_quotes Knowledge_quotes Create_quotes Direct_quotes Responsibility_quotes Consequence_quotes Begin_quotes Shun_quotes

Baruch_Spinoza

True and False

“He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.”
  • Source: A book. Entitled Ethics. Also entitled Ethica. Written by Baruch Spinoza. Originally published 1677. Translated from Latin by R. H. M. Elwes. Part II, Prop. XLII proof. Online at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ethics_(Spinoza).
Keywords: Epistemology_quotes Logic_quotes Knowledge_quotes Distinguish_quotes True_quotes False_quotes Adequate_quotes Idea_quotes

John_Steinbeck

All Information Not In

“It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when we find they do not fit and draw new ones.”
  • Source: John Steinbeck, In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts, Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 165-66.
Keywords: Say_quotes Knowledge_quotes Judgment_quotes Information_quotes Process_quotes Gather_quotes Lead_quotes Children_quotes World_quotes Spread_quotes Understanding_quotes Scientist_quotes Thrust_quotes Outward_quotes Immeasurable_quotes Answer_quotes Invariant_quotes Parent_quotes Family_quotes Question_quotes Draw_quotes Fit_quotes Trace_quotes Crumple_quotes Find_quotes

Albert_Szent-Györgyi

Discovery At Variance

“A discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge. During my lifetime, I made two. Both were rejected offhand by the popes of the field. Had I predicted these discoveries in my applications, and had those authorities been my judges, it is evident what their decisions would have been.”
  • Source: In 'Dionysians and Apollonians', Science (2 Jun 1972), 176, 966. Reprinted in Mary Ritchie Key, The Relationship of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication (1980), 318.
Keywords: Discovery_quotes Definition_quotes Variance_quotes Existing_quotes Knowledge_quotes Lifetime_quotes Rejection_quotes Offhand_quotes Pope_quotes Field_quotes Prediction_quotes Application_quotes Authority_quotes Judge_quotes Decision_quotes

Thales

Know Thyself

“Know Thyself.”
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Self_quotes

Alfred_Russel_Wallace

Truth Proof

“There is no more convincing proof of the truth of a comprehensive theory than its power of absorbing and finding a place for new facts, and its capability of interpreting phenomena which had been previously looked upon as unaccountable anomalies. It is thus that the law of universal gravitation and the undulatory theory of light have become established and universally accepted by men of science. Fact after fact has been brought forward as being apparently inconsistent with them, and one after another these very facts have been shown to be the consequences of the laws they were at first supposed to disprove. A false theory will never stand this test. Advancing knowledge brings to light whole groups of facts which it cannot deal with, and its advocates steadily decrease in numbers, notwithstanding the ability and scientific skill with which it may have been supported.”
  • Source: Alfred Russel Wallace, From a review of four books on the subject 'Mimicry, and Other Protective Resemblances Among Animals', in The Westminster Review (Jul 1867), 88, 1. Wallace is identified as the author within the article as reprinted in William Beebe, The Book of Naturalists: An Anthology of the Best Natural History (1988), 108.
Keywords: Convince_quotes Proof_quotes Truth_quotes Comprehension_quotes Theory_quotes Power_quotes Absorb_quotes Find_quotes Place_quotes Fact_quotes Capability_quotes Interpretation_quotes Phenomena_quotes Unaccount_quotes Anomalies_quotes Law_quotes Universal_quotes Gravity_quotes Undulate_quotes Light_quotes Establish_quotes Acceptance_quotes Man_quotes Science_quotes Inconsistent_quotes Consequence_quotes Disproof_quotes False_quotes Stand_quotes Testing_quotes Advance_quotes Knowledge_quotes Group_quotes Deal_quotes Advocate_quotes Decrease_quotes Number_quotes Ability_quotes Skill_quotes Support_quotes Apparent_quotes Suppose_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Knowledge Came Slowly

“In ages past, the knowledge came very slowly, and one man in his life was not likely to see much change other than that wrought by nature. The controlled incorporation of arsenic into copper to make bronze took several thousand years to develop; the substitution of tin for the more dangerous arsenic took another thousand or two. In our modern age, laboratories turn out an alloy a day, or more, with properties made to order. The alloying of metals led to the rise and fall of civilizations, but the changes were too slow to be appreciated. A truer blade meant victory over the invaders, but changes were local and slow enough to be absorbed by a million tiny adjustments without destroying the species. With an alloy a day, we can no longer be sure. Science and engineering have been the catalysts for the unprecedented speed and magnitude of change. The physicist shows us how to harness the power of the nucleus; the chemist shows us how to increase the quantity of our food; the geneticist shows us how to improve the quality of our children. But science and engineering have been unable to keep pace with the second-order effects produced by their first-order victories. The excess heat from the nuclear generator alters the spawning pattern of fish, and, before adjustments can be made, other species have produced irreversible changes in the ecology of the river and its borders. The pesticide eliminates one insect only to the advantage of others that may be worse, or the herbicide clears the rain forest for farming, but the resulting soil changes make the land less productive than it was before. And of what we are doing to our progeny, we still have only ghastly hints. Some have said the general systems movement was born out of the failures of science, but it would be more accurate to say the general systems approach is needed because science has been such a success. Science and technology have colonized the planet, and nothing in our lives is untouched. In this changing, they have revealed a complexity with which they are not prepared to deal. The general systems movement has taken up the task of helping scientists unravel complexity, technologists to master it, and others to learn to live with it.”
  • Source: Weinberg, Gerald (2011-04-07). An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Kindle Locations 264-267). Weinberg & Weinberg. Kindle Edition.
Keywords: History_quotes Knowledge_quotes Slow_quotes Humanity_quotes Life_quotes Change_quotes Nature_quotes Arsenic_quotes Copper_quotes Bronze_quotes Technology_quotes Tin_quotes Metal_quotes Laboratory_quotes Property_quotes On_Demand_quotes Rise_quotes Fall_quotes Civilization_quotes Appreciation_quotes Victory_quotes Blade_quotes Invader_quotes Adjustment_quotes Species_quotes Science_quotes Engineering_quotes Catalyst_quotes Speed_quotes Physics_quotes Chemistry_quotes Food_quotes Genetics_quotes Quality_quotes Children_quotes Effect_quotes Heat_quotes Fish_quotes Irreversible_quotes Ecology_quotes River_quotes Pesticide_quotes Insect_quotes Herbicide_quotes Forest_quotes Farming_quotes Soil_quotes Productivity_quotes Progeny_quotes System_quotes Failure_quotes Accuracy_quotes Colonize_quotes Planet_quotes Earth_quotes Complexity_quotes Preparation_quotes Man_quotes Nucleus_quotes Quantity_quotes Second-order_quotes First-order_quotes Nuclear_quotes Generator_quotes Alter_quotes Spawn_quotes Pattern_quotes Border_quotes Eliminate_quotes Advantage_quotes Worse_quotes Rain_quotes Land_quotes Ghastly_quotes Hint_quotes General_quotes Approach_quotes Success_quotes Accurate_quotes Say_quotes Untouch_quotes Reveal_quotes Master_quotes Learn_quotes

Know What They Want

“In spite of appearances, people seldom know what they want until you give them what they ask for.”
  • Source: Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is by Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg
Keywords: Appearance_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Want_quotes Give_quotes Ask_quotes Requirements_quotes

Technical Leaders

“Leadership, in the sense that social scientists use it, means the ability to influence people. Programmers, being people who tend to value creative work and professional competence, tend to put their stock in people whom they perceive to be good at the things they do. Thus, it is easier to exert leadership over — to influence — programmers by being a soft-spoken programming wizard than by being the world's fastest-talking salesman. When nonprogramming leaders are brought in to be in charge of programming teams, trouble usually brews unless the appointed leader explicitly and implicitly recognizes his incapacity on technical matters. The very worst he can do — and this goes also for a former programmer who has lost touch with the field — is to try to match programming wits with the other members of the team. Although a team might come to respect a leader who openly admitted his programming inexperience, they could only come to ridicule one whose pretense at knowledge was revealed to be a sham.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Technology_quotes Leadership_quotes Society_quotes Science_quotes Sociology_quotes Ability_quotes Influence_quotes People_quotes Creativity_quotes Professional_quotes Competence_quotes Trust_quotes Good_quotes Skill_quotes Wizard_quotes Programming_quotes Fast_quotes Talking_quotes Salesman_quotes Humility_quotes Respect_quotes Team_quotes Experience_quotes Ridicule_quotes Pretense_quotes Knowledge_quotes Revealing_quotes Sham_quotes Programmer_quotes Stock_quotes Perceive_quotes Soft_quotes Spoken_quotes World_quotes Nonprogramming_quotes Brought_quotes Charge_quotes Trouble_quotes Brew_quotes Appoint_quotes Explicitly_quotes Implicitly_quotes Recognize_quotes Incapacity_quotes Worse_quotes Former_quotes Lost_quotes Touch_quotes Field_quotes Try_quotes Match_quotes Wit_quotes Member_quotes Admit_quotes Inexperience_quotes

Allen_Wheelis

Science Accuracy Certainty

“Science would have us believe that such accuracy, leading to certainty, is the only criterion of knowledge, would make the trial of Galileo the paradigm of the two points of view which aspire to truth, would suggest, that is, that the cardinals represent only superstition and repression, while Galileo represents freedom. But there is another criterion which is systematically neglected in this elevation of science. Man does not now — and will not ever — live by the bread of scientific method alone. He must deal with life and death, with love and cruelty and despair, and so must make conjectures of great importance which may or may not be true and which do not lend themselves to experimentation: It is better to give than to receive; Love thy neighbor as thyself; Better to risk slavery through non-violence than to defend freedom with murder. We must deal with such propositions, must decide whether they are true, whether to believe them, whether to act on them — and scientific method is no help for by their nature these matters lie forever beyond the realm of science.”
  • Source: Allen Wheelis, In The End of the Modern Age (1973), 89.
Keywords: Science_quotes Belief_quotes Accuracy_quotes Lead_quotes Certainty_quotes Criteria_quotes Knowledge_quotes Trial_quotes Galileo(topic)_quotes Paradigm_quotes Point_quotes View_quotes Aspiration_quotes Truth_quotes Suggestion_quotes Cardinal_quotes Representation_quotes Superstition_quotes Repression_quotes Freedom_quotes Systematic_quotes Neglect_quotes Elevation_quotes Humanity_quotes Bread_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Deal_quotes Living_quotes Death_quotes Love_quotes Cruel_quotes Despair_quotes Conjecture_quotes Importance_quotes True_quotes Lend_quotes Experiment_quotes Better_quotes Give_quotes Recieve_quotes Neighbor_quotes Risk_quotes Slavery_quotes Violence_quotes Non-Violence_quotes Defend_quotes Murder_quotes Proposition_quotes Decision_quotes Act_quotes Help_quotes Nature_quotes Forever_quotes Beyond_quotes Realm_quotes Man_quotes Method_quotes

Alfred_North_Whitehead

Rigid Dogma Destroys Truth

“It is rigid dogma that destroys truth; and, please notice, my emphasis is not on the dogma, but on the rigidity. When men say of any question, ‘This is all there is to be known or said of the subject; investigation ends here,' that is death. It may be that the mischief comes not from the thinker but for the use made of his thinking by late-comers. Aristotle, for example, gave us our scientific technique ... yet his logical propositions, his instruction in sound reasoning which was bequeathed to Europe, are valid only within the limited framework of formal logic, and, as used in Europe, they stultified the minds of whole generations of medieval Schoolmen. Aristotle invented science, but destroyed philosophy.”
  • Source: Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as recorded by Lucien Price (1954, 2001), 165.
Keywords: Rigidity_quotes Dogma_quotes Destroy_quotes Truth_quotes Emphasis_quotes Men_quotes Say_quotes Question_quotes Knowledge_quotes Subject_quotes Investigation_quotes Death_quotes Mischief_quotes Come_quotes Thinker_quotes Late_quotes Aristotle(topic)_quotes Example_quotes Logic_quotes Science_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Technique_quotes Proposition_quotes Instruction_quotes Sound_quotes Reason_quotes Bequeath_quotes Europe(topic)_quotes Validity_quotes Limitation_quotes Framework_quotes Formal_quotes Stultify_quotes Mind_quotes Generation_quotes Medieval_quotes Schoolmen_quotes Philosophy_quotes Method_quotes

Eugene_Wigner

No Definite Evidence

“[F. Werner, while a student in Princeton,] came to me and expressed his bewilderment with the fact that we make a rather narrow selection when choosing the data on which we test our theories. ‘How do we know that, if we made a theory which focuses its attention on phenomena we disregard and disregards some of the phenomena now commanding our attention, that we could not build another theory which has little in common with the present one but which, nevertheless, explains just as many phenomena as the present theory?' It has to be admitted that we have no definite evidence that there is no such theory.”
  • Source: Eugene Paul Wigner, In 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,' Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics (Feb 1960), 13, No. 1 (February 1960). Collected in Eugene Paul Wigner, A.S. Wightman (ed.), Jagdish Mehra (ed.), The Collected Works of Eugene Paul Wigner (1955), Vol. 6, 535.
Keywords: Come_quotes Express_quotes Bewilderment_quotes Fact_quotes Narrow_quotes Select_quotes Choose_quotes Data_quotes Testing_quotes Theory_quotes Knowledge_quotes Focus_quotes Attention_quotes Phenomena_quotes Disregard_quotes Command_quotes Build_quotes Present_quotes Explanation_quotes Admit_quotes Definite_quotes Evidence_quotes

E_O_Wilson

Knowledge is the Ultimate Emancipator

“Pure knowledge is the ultimate emancipator. It equalizes people and sovereign states, erodes the archaic barriers of superstition and promises to lift the trajectory of cultural evolution. But I do not believe that it can change the ground rules of human behavior or alter the main course of history's predictable trajectory.”
  • Source: Chapter 4 (Emergence). On Human Nature (1978). On Human Nature; written by Edward O. Wilson; first edition; published in 1978 by Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0674634411.
Keywords: Pure_quotes Knowledge_quotes Ultimate_quotes Emancipator_quotes Equalize_quotes People_quotes Sovereign_quotes State_quotes Erode_quotes Archaic_quotes Barrier_quotes Change_quotes Ground_quotes Rule_quotes Human_quotes Behavior_quotes Superstition_quotes Promise_quotes Lift_quotes Trajectory_quotes Culture_quotes Evolution_quotes Believe_quotes Alter_quotes Main_quotes Course_quotes History_quotes Predict_quotes

Self-Knowledge

“Self-knowledge will reveal the elements of biological human nature from which modern social life proliferated in all its strange forms.”
  • Source: Chapter 4 (Emergence). On Human Nature (1978). On Human Nature; written by Edward O. Wilson; first edition; published in 1978 by Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0674634411.
Keywords: Self-Knowledge_quotes Reveal_quotes Knowledge_quotes Element_quotes Biology_quotes Human_quotes Nature_quotes Modern_quotes Social_quotes Life_quotes Proliferate_quotes All_quotes Strange_quotes Form_quotes

John_Archibald_Wheeler

Sea of Ignorance

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
  • Source: John Archibald Wheeler as quoted by author John Horgan in the article "The New Challenges" in Scientific American (1992), Volume 267, Number 6, page 20.
Keywords: Live_quotes Island_quotes Sea_quotes Ignorance_quotes Knowledge_quotes Grow_quotes Shore_quotes

Shoshana_Zuboff

Know-How

“The agenda for scientific management was to increase productivity by streamlining and rationalizing factory operation from cost accounting and supervision to the dullest job on the shop floor. Efficiency was the mania, and to achieve efficiency, it would be necessary to penetrate the labor process and force it to yield up its secrets. In order that effort be rationalized, the worker's skills had to be made explicit. In many cases, workers' perceptions of their own interests prevented them from articulating their know-how, but there was yet another involuntary barrier. These skills did not easily yield themselves to explication; they were embedded in the ways of the body, in the knacks and know-how of the craftworker.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 42. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Requirements_quotes Agenda_quotes Scientific_Management_quotes Productivity_quotes Reason_quotes Efficiency_quotes Drudgery_quotes Mania_quotes Achievement_quotes Labor_quotes Process_quotes Secret_quotes Rational_quotes Worker_quotes Skill_quotes Explicit_quotes Perception_quotes Interest_quotes Articulation_quotes Involuntary_quotes Barrier_quotes Embedded_quotes Body_quotes Subconscious_quotes Mind_quotes Craft_quotes Taylorism_quotes Science_quotes Management_quotes Increase_quotes Streamline_quotes Factory_quotes Operation_quotes Cost_quotes Accounting_quotes Supervision_quotes Dull_quotes Job_quotes Shop_quotes Floor_quotes Penetrate_quotes Force_quotes Yield_quotes Case_quotes Prevent_quotes Know-how_quotes Explication_quotes Knack_quotes Craftworker_quotes

Deskilling

“While it is true that computer-based automation continues to displace the human body and its know-how (a process that has come to be known as deskilling), the informating power of the technology simultaneously creates pressure for a profound reskilling.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 57. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Automation_quotes Body_quotes Knowledge_quotes Deskilling_quotes Informating_quotes Technology_quotes Reskilling_quotes Skill_quotes True_quotes Computer_quotes Base_quotes Displace_quotes Human_quotes Know-how_quotes Process_quotes Power_quotes Pressure_quotes

Informating Innovation

“If the informating process is to be exploited for its competitive opportunities, then widely distributed mastery over the new intellective grounds of knowledge becomes an acute demand. For this to occur, organizational innovation is required.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 217. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Informating_quotes Exploitation_quotes Competition_quotes Opportunity_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Knowledge_quotes Demand_quotes Organization_quotes Information_quotes Innovation_quotes

Knowledge and Power

“Knowledge and power. Power and knowledge. They circle one another like figures on a Greek vase. Now knowledge overtakes and transforms power. Now power gains momentum, engulfing knowledge.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 221. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Power_quotes Circle_quotes Transformation_quotes Momentum_quotes Vase_quotes Oscillation_quotes Cyclic_quotes Greek_quotes Overtake_quotes Transform_quotes Engulf_quotes

Automation and Labor

“Perhaps the most compelling reality that drives managers to a narrowly conceived emphasis on automation is the web of economic logic in which they must operate. Frequently, new expenditures for technology can be justified only as a capital substitution for labor. It is often assumed that whatever was provided by the human contributor can be transferred to the automatic functioning of the machine system.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 248. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Management_quotes Automation_quotes Labor_quotes Economics_quotes Logic_quotes Technology_quotes Expenditure_quotes Cost_quotes Justification_quotes Capital_quotes Skill_quotes Knowledge_quotes Compelling_quotes Reality_quotes Drive_quotes Narrow_quotes Conceive_quotes Emphasis_quotes Web_quotes Operate_quotes Frequent_quotes Substitution_quotes Human_quotes Contributor_quotes Transfer_quotes Function_quotes Machine_quotes System_quotes

Manager Panic

“People at every organizational level -- managers, engineers, and operators -- each spent a good deal of time speculating on the sources of this dynamic and its ultimate consequences. One top manager maintained that the core of the problem was the lack of an alternative to the traditional managerial function. ‘The problem is that managers don't have skills and knowledge or a vision of their new role. They are asking, What is going to happen to me? And so they are in a panic.'”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 251. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: People_quotes Organization_quotes Hierarchy_quotes Consequence_quotes Tradition_quotes Skill_quotes Knowledge_quotes Vision_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Panic_quotes Level_quotes Manager_quotes Engineer_quotes Operator_quotes Time_quotes Speculate_quotes Source_quotes Dynamic_quotes Ultimate_quotes Top_quotes Maintain_quotes Core_quotes Problem_quotes Lack_quotes Alternative_quotes Function_quotes Role_quotes Happen_quotes
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