Paradox quotes
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David_Epstein
Complete Freedom
“In other words, when anything is possible, it becomes nearly impossible to do anything new. Complete freedom, paradoxically, leads to conformity.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 58. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
Enrico_Fermi
Where Is Everybody
“Where Is Everybody?”
- Source: Words spoken by Enrico Fermi circa 1950 at a lunch at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with Edward Teller and several other colleagues from the Los Alamos atomic research laboratory. These words were reported by Edward Teller, who was present, in a letter to Eric M. Jones, an astronomer, who wrote an account of the event in the article entitled ‘Where is Everybody?: An Account of Fermi's Question', which includes a reproduction of Teller's letter. Article retrieved 2024-04-02 from https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/la-10311-ms.pdf.
- Note: Often quoted as “Where is Everyone?”. This event marks the origin of “Fermi's Paradox”.
- Keywords: Where_quotes Everybody_quotes Fermi(topic)_quotes Paradox_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
Aldous_Huxley
Time Awareness Paradox
“This brings us to a seeming paradox. Acutely aware of the smallest constituent particles of time — of time, as measured by clock-work and train arrivals and the revolutions of machines — industrialized man has to a great extent lost the old awareness of time in its larger divisions.”
- Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Time and the Machine within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
J_Robert_Oppenheimer
Science Starts with Preconception
“Science starts with preconception, with the common culture, and with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to use these corrections for the designing of further observation and for more refined experiment. And as it moves along this course the nature of the evidence and experience that nourish it becomes more and more unfamiliar; it is not just the language that is strange [to common culture].”
- Source: J. Robert Oppenheimer, From 'The Growth of Science and the Structure of Culture', Daedalus (Winter 1958), 87, No. 1, 67.
- Keywords: Science_quotes Preconception_quotes Common_quotes Culture_quotes Common_Sense_quotes Observation_quotes Discovery_quotes Paradox_quotes Correction_quotes Assumption_quotes Design_quotes Experiment_quotes Nature_quotes Evidence_quotes Experience_quotes Nourish_quotes Unfamiliar_quotes Language_quotes Strange_quotes Sense_quotes
Bertrand_Russell
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
Exact Theory Beyond Human Powers
“A wholly exact theory is utterly beyond human powers. 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.”
- Source: Russell, B. (1949). The Scientific Outlook (2nd ed.) (2nd ed.). London, UK: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Retrieved from https://ia802608.us.archive.org/16/items/scientificoutloo030217mbp/scientificoutloo030217mbp.pdf
Herbert_Simon
Design Paradox
“A paradoxical, but perhaps realistic, view of design goals is that their function is to motivate activity which in turn will generate new goals.”
- Source: Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial (Third Edition). Computers & Mathematics with Applications (3rd ed., Vol. 33). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780585360102. Retrieved 2018-08-23 from https://monoskop.org/images/9/9c/Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed.pdf. Chapter 6, page 162.
- Keywords: Paradox_quotes Realism_quotes View_quotes Design_quotes Goal_quotes Function_quotes Motivation_quotes Activity_quotes Turn_quotes Generation_quotes
Alan_Turing
Consciousness
“I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness. There is, for instance, something of a paradox connected with any attempt to localize it.”
- Source: From the paper entitled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by Alan Turing. Published in 1950 in “Mind”, volume 49, number 236.
- Keywords: Wish_quotes Give_quotes Impression_quotes Think_quotes Mystery_quotes Consciousness_quotes Paradox_quotes Connect_quotes Attempt_quotes Localize_quotes
