Reach quotes

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Christopher_Wolfgang_Alexander

Complexity

“Today more and more design problems are reaching insoluble levels of complexity... In spite of their superficial simplicity, even these problems have a background of needs and activities which is becoming too complex to grasp intuitively.”

Design Information Overload

“Not only is the quantity of information itself by now beyond the reach of single designers, but the various specialists who retail it are narrow and unfamiliar with the form-makes' peculiar problems, so that it is never clear quite how the designer should best consult them.”

William_Ian_Beardmore_Beveridge

Role of Hypothesis

“The role of hypothesis in research can be discussed more effectively if we consider first some examples of discoveries which originated from hypotheses. One of the best illustrations of such a discovery is provided by the story of Christopher Columbus’ voyage; it has many of the features of a classic discovery in science. (a) He was obsessed with an idea—that since the world is round he could reach the Orient by sailing West, (b) the idea was by no means original, but evidently he had obtained some additional evidence from a sailor blown off his course who claimed to have reached land in the west and returned, (c) he met great difficulties in getting someone to provide the money to enable him to test his idea as well as in the actual carrying out of the experimental voyage, (d) when finally he succeeded he did not find the expected new route, but instead found a whole new world, (e) despite all evidence to the contrary he clung to the bitter end to his hypothesis and believed that he had found the route to the Orient, (f) he got little credit or reward during his lifetime and neither he nor others realized the full implications of his discovery, (g) since his time evidence has been brought forward showing that he was by no means the first European to reach America.”
  • Source: W. I. B. Beveridge in his book ‘The Art of Scientific Investigation’ published in 1950 by William Heinemann, London, page 41.

Bible_Verses

Tower Of Babel (Genesis 11:4-6)

(4) “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
(5) “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.”
(6) “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

Octavia_E_Butler

Too Alert

“She was too alert, too alive not to have the kind of mind that probed and reached and got her into trouble now and then.”
  • Source: Written by Octavia E. Butler in her story entitled “Wild Seed”. Chapter 1. Written 1980. Published in the compilation book entitled “Seed to Harvest”. Compiled by Octavia E. Butler. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY in 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-446-69890-0.

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.

Carl_Jung

Soul's Desire

“He whose desire turns away from outer things, reaches the place of the soul. If he does not find the soul, the horror of emptiness will overcome him, and fear will drive him with a whip lashing time and again in a desperate endeavor and a blind desire for the hollow things of the world. He becomes a fool through his endless desire, and forgets the way of his soul, never to find her again.”
  • 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 129.
  • Notes:
    • In 1913 Jung called this turning away process the ‘introversion of the libido’ in ‘On the Question of Psychological Types’.

Alan_Perlis

Knowledge and Wisdom

“Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.”

Steven_Pinker

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.

Gerald_Weinberg

Management Deskilling

“Even though the nth-level manager may have originally been a programmer, which is rare enough, he has almost certainly lost any programming ability by the time he reaches these heights. Given the rapid change of programming techniques and hardware, the higher-level manager becomes obsolete even if he retains the skills he originally had and keeps them sharply honed, for those languages and those machines are no longer in use. In a small survey of working programmers, only 15 percent of the first-line managers were thought to be as skillful as the programmers themselves, and none of the higher-level managers.”
  • Source: Chapter 6. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.

Shoshana_Zuboff

Authority is the Spiritual Dimension of Power

“Authority is the spiritual dimension of power because it depends upon faith in a system of meaning that decrees the necessity of the hierarchical order and so provides for the unity of imperative control. Authority requires collective participation in a system of meaning that extends beyond the immediate context, beyond those who command or obey, and reaches into the domain of transcendent values. Members of a hierarchical order are linked together through allegiance to or faith in a common belief system, and every action that ensures the smooth exercise of imperative control refers back to, and expresses the bonds one has with, some fundamental source of meaning.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 222. ISBN:0465032125.

Panopticon Surveillance

“At each level of these organizations, people searched for ways to adapt to the intense illumination of the information panopticon. There was less room for interpersonal ploys or negotiated solutions and fewer hidden corners in which to enjoy anonymous repose or indulge in overtly negative behavior. To some, it seemed that only the human heart retained its privacy, out of reach and recalcitrant.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 342. ISBN:0465032125.