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Revision as of 20:04, 29 August 2026

Isaac_Asimov

Evidence

“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”

• Source: Isaac Asimov, In David S. Bradford, In the Beginning: Building the Temple of Zion, published 2008.

• See Also:
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes/Evidence

---

Science Uncertainty

“Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.”

• Source: Isaac Asimov, The ‘Threat’ of Creationism. In Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism, published 1984, page 192.

• See Also:
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes/Science_Uncertainty

---

Observation

“Sherlock Holmes pointed out that one might see, yet not observe. That's a basic cause of much human failure.”

• 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 49, page 183. ISBN 1-555-84111-2.

• See Also:
  • https://archive.org/details/BookOfScienceAndNatureQuotations-IsaacAsimov
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes
  • Isaac_Asimov_quotes/Observation

---

Jim_Baggott

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.

• See Also:
  • Jim_Baggott_quotes
  • Jim_Baggott_quotes/The_Fact_Principle

---

The Copernican Principle

“The Copernican Principle. The universe is not organized for our benefit and we are not uniquely privileged observers. Science strives to remove ‘us’ from the centre of the picture, making our existence a natural consequence of reality rather than the reason for it. Empirical reality is therefore something that we have learned to observe with detachment, without passion. Scientists ask fundamental questions about how reality works and seek answers in the evidence from observation and experiment, irrespective of their own personal preferences, prejudices and beliefs.”

• Source: Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 23). Pegasus Books. New York, NY

• See Also:
  • Jim_Baggott_quotes
  • Jim_Baggott_quotes/The_Copernican_Principle

---

Reinout_Willem_van_Bemmelen

Validity of Hypothesis

“The functional validity of a working hypothesis is not a priori certain, because often it is initially based on intuition. However, logical deductions from such a hypothesis provide expectations (so-called prognoses) as to the circumstances under which certain phenomena will appear in nature. Such a postulate or working hypothesis can then be substantiated by additional observations ... The author calls such expectations and additional observations the prognosis-diagnosis method of research. Prognosis in science may be termed the prediction of the future finding of corroborative evidence of certain features or phenomena (diagnostic facts). This method of scientific research builds up and extends the relations between the subject and the object by means of a circuit of inductions and deductions.”

• Source: Reinout Willem van Bemmelen. In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 454-5.

• See Also:
  • Reinout_Willem_van_Bemmelen_quotes
  • Reinout_Willem_van_Bemmelen_quotes/Validity_of_Hypothesis

---

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.

• See Also:
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes/Narrow_Observation

---

Observation and Experiment

“Observation shows, and experiment teaches.”

• 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.

• See Also:
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes/Observation_and_Experiment

---

Trust

“The great experimental principle, then, is doubt... We must trust our observations or our theories only after experimental verification. If we trust too much, the mind becomes bound and cramped by the results of its own reasoning; it no longer has freedom of action, and so lacks the power to break away from that blind faith in theories which is only scientific superstition.”

• 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 37. Available online at https://archive.org/details/b21270557 retrieved 2024.

• See Also:
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes/Trust

---

Excessive Faith

“Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries, they also make very poor observations.”

• 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 38. Available online at https://archive.org/details/b21270557 retrieved 2024.

• See Also:
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes
  • Claude_Bernard_quotes/Excessive_Faith

---

David_Bohm

Extraphysical Principles

“There is no reason why an extraphysical general principle is necessarily to be avoided, since such principles could conceivably serve as useful working hypotheses. For the history of scientific research is full of examples in which it was very fruitful indeed to assume that certain objects or elements might be real, long before any procedures were known which would permit them to be observed directly.”

• Source: David Bohm in the paper “A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of ‘Hidden’ Variables. II”. Published January 1952 in Physical Review volume 35 issue 2.

• See Also:
  • David_Bohm_quotes
  • David_Bohm_quotes/Extraphysical_Principles

---

Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

Stupidity Power

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.”

• Source: From the paper “An Account at the Turn of the Year 1942-1943” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, contained within the book “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 8: Letters and Papers from Prison” edited by John W. Gruchy, et al. Published in 2009 by Fortress Press.

• See Also:
  • Dietrich_Bonhoeffer_quotes
  • Dietrich_Bonhoeffer_quotes/Stupidity_Power

---

George_E_P_Box

Slow Progress

“History shows that the human animal has always learned but progress used to be very slow. This was because learning often depended on the chance coming together of a potentially informative event on the one hand and a perceptive observer on the other. Scientific method accelerated that process.”

• Source: George E.P. Box, in the article ‘Total Quality: Its Origins and its Future’, published 1995 at the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement.

• See Also:
  • George_E_P_Box_quotes
  • George_E_P_Box_quotes/Slow_Progress

---

Alistair_Cockburn

People Characteristics

"People, as active devices, have success modes and failure modes. The following are the main ones that I have named and used to date:
1. People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time question and answer.
2. People have trouble acting consistently over time.
3. People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.
4. People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing 'whatever is needed' to get the project to work.
There are other characteristics that I won’t expand here:
- People need both think time and communicating opportunities...
- People work well from examples...
- People prefer to fail conservatively than to risk succeeding differently; prefer to invent than to research, can only keep a small amount in their heads, and do make mistakes, and find it hard to change their habits.
- Individual personalities easily dominate a project.
- A person’s personality profile strongly affects their ability to perform specific assignments."

• Source: Cockburn, A. A. R. (1999). Characterizing people as non-linear 1st order components in software development. HaT Technical Report 1999.03, Humans and Technology, Inc.. Retrieved 2019-06-29 from https://ameyakarve.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/characterizing-people-as-non-linear-1st-order-components-in-software-development-cockburn-us/.

• See Also:
  • Alistair_Cockburn_quotes
  • Alistair_Cockburn_quotes/People_Characteristics

---

Charles_Darwin

Good Observer Theory

"I have an old belief that a good observer really means a good theorist."

• Source: Charles Darwin (1860). Letter to Henry Walter Bates, 1860-11-22. Retrieved 2019-05-25 from https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2993.xml.

• See Also:
  • Charles_Darwin_quotes
  • Charles_Darwin_quotes/Good_Observer_Theory

---

Observation versus Theory

"About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service."

• Source: Charles Darwin (1861). Letter to Henry Fawcett, 1861-09-18. Retrieved 2019-05-25 from https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-3257.xml.

• See Also:
  • Charles_Darwin_quotes
  • Charles_Darwin_quotes/Observation_versus_Theory

---

David_Deutsch

Data Interpretation

“We never know any data before interpreting it through theories. All observations are, as Popper put it, theory-laden, and hence fallible, as all our theories are.”

• Source: David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (2011).

• See Also:
  • David_Deutsch_quotes
  • David_Deutsch_quotes/Data_Interpretation

---

DeMarco and Lister

Project Failures

"We observe that about 15 percent of all projects studied came to naught: They were canceled or aborted or 'postponed' or they delivered products that were never used. For bigger projects, the odds are even worse. Fully 25 percent of projects that lasted 25 work-years or more failed to complete. In the early surveys, we discarded these failed data points and analyzed the others. Since 1979, though, we’ve been contacting whoever is left of the project staff to find out what went wrong. For the overwhelming majority of the bankrupt projects we studied, there was not a single technological issue to explain the failure."

• Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).

• See Also:
  • DeMarco_and_Lister_quotes
  • DeMarco_and_Lister_quotes/Project_Failures

---

Project Politics

"The cause of failure most frequently cited by our survey participants was 'politics.' But now observe that people tend to use this word rather sloppily. Included under 'politics' are such unrelated or loosely related things as communication problems, staffing problems, disenchantment with the boss or with the client, lack of motivation, and high turnover. People often use the word politics to describe any aspect of the work that is people-related, but the English language provides a much more precise term for these effects: They constitute the project’s sociology. The truly political problems are a tiny and pathological subset."

• Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).

• See Also:
  • DeMarco_and_Lister_quotes
  • DeMarco_and_Lister_quotes/Project_Politics

---

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?”

• Source: Words of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. Written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the short story “A Case of Identity”. Published in 1891-09 in Strand Magazine. Online at https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1-sided/iden.pdf, retrieved 2024.

• See Also:
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Identity
  • Arthur_Conan_Doyle_quotes
  • Arthur_Conan_Doyle_quotes/Know_Things_Others_Overlook

---

Albert_Einstein

Moon Reality

“I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of measurements. That is, an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.”

• Source: Earliest published version found in the 1999 book ‘Words Fail Me’ by Patricia O'Conner, page 41.
  • The part about the moon is probably based on Abraham Pais' recollection: "We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it". As recalled by his biographer Abraham Pais in Reviews of Modern Physics, 51, 863 (1979): 907.

• See Also:
  • Albert_Einstein_quotes
  • Albert_Einstein_quotes/Moon_Reality

---

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

• See Also:
  • Milton_Friedman_quotes
  • Milton_Friedman_quotes/Positive_Knowledge

---

Galileo

Milky Way

“The next object which I have observed is the essence or substance of the Milky Way. By the aid of a telescope anyone may behold this in a manner which so distinctly appeals to the senses that all the disputes which have tormented philosophers through so many ages are exploded at once by the irrefragable evidence of our eyes, and we are freed from wordy disputes upon this subject, for the Galaxy is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.”

• Source: Galileo Galilei, In the pamphlet, The Sidereal Messenger (1610), reprinted in The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei: And a Part of the Preface to the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries (1880), 42.

• See Also:
  • Galileo_quotes
  • Galileo_quotes/Milky_Way

---

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.

• See Also:
  • Thomas_Gold_quotes
  • Thomas_Gold_quotes/Knowledge_Rules

---

Charles_Goodhart

Goodhart's Law

“Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.”

• Source: Goodhart, Charles (1975). "Problems of Monetary Management: The UK Experience". In Courakis, Anthony S. (ed.). Inflation, Depression, and Economic Policy in the West. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books (published 1981). p. 116. ISBN 0-389-20144-8.

• See Also:
  • Charles_Goodhart_quotes
  • Charles_Goodhart_quotes/Goodharts_Law

John_Gribbin

Scientific Method

“The Big Idea that had been developed in the seventeenth century ... is now known as the scientific method. It says that the way to proceed when investigating how the world works is to first carry out experiments and/or make observations of the natural world. Then, develop hypotheses to explain these observations, and (crucially) use the hypothesis to make predictions about the future outcome of future experiments and/or observations. After comparing the results of those new observations with the predictions of the hypotheses, discard those hypotheses which make false predictions, and retain (at least, for the time being) any hypothesis that makes accurate predictions, elevating it to the status of a theory. Note that a theory can never be proved right. The best that can be said is that it has passed all the tests applied so far.”

• Source: John R. Gribbin. In The Fellowship: the Story of a Revolution (2005), 275.

• See Also:
  • John_Gribbin_quotes
  • John_Gribbin_quotes/Scientific_Method

---

Richard_Hamming

Scientific Laws

“Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.”

• Source: Richard Hamming, 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics', The American Mathematical Monthly (Feb 1980), 87 No.2.

• See Also:
  • Richard_Hamming_quotes
  • Richard_Hamming_quotes/Scientific_Laws

---

Stephen_Hawking

Imaginary Reality

“One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So, what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?”

• Source: Hawking, Stephen in the book “The Universe in a Nutshell”, p. 59 (2001).

• See Also:
  • Stephen_Hawking_quotes
  • Stephen_Hawking_quotes/Imaginary_Reality

---

Werner_Heisenberg

Observations

“If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize that the word ‘happens’ can only apply to the observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations.”

• Source: Heisenberg, W.(1958) Physics and Philosophy, chap. 3.

• See Also:
  • Werner_Heisenberg_quotes
  • Werner_Heisenberg_quotes/Observations

---

Mary_Hesse

Analogy or Model

“…one of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself… A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own development.”

• Source: Mary B. Hesse, 'Operational Definition and Analogy in Physical Theories', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (Feb 1952), 2, No. 8, 291.

• See Also:
  • Mary_Hesse_quotes
  • Mary_Hesse_quotes/Analogy_or_Model

---

Sabine_Hossenfelder

Closer Reality

“The foundations of physics give us a closer look at reality, but the closer we look at reality, the more slippery it becomes. Our heavy use of mathematics is a major reason. The more the fundamental descriptions of nature have become divorced from our everyday experience, the more we must rely on mathematical rigor. This reliance has consequences. Using math to describe reality means that the same observations can be equivalently explained in many different ways. That’s just because there are many sets of mathematical axioms that will give the exact same predictions for all available data. Thus, if you want to assign 'reality' to one of your explanations, you won’t know which.”

• Source: Hossenfelder, Sabine. Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (p. 74). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

• See Also:
  • Sabine_Hossenfelder_quotes
  • Sabine_Hossenfelder_quotes/Closer_Reality

---

M_King_Hubbert

Principle of Uniformity

“[The] first postulate of the Principle of Uniformity, namely, that the laws of nature are invariant with time, is not peculiar to that principle or to geology, but is a common denominator of all science. In fact, instead of being an assumption or an ad hoc hypothesis, it is simply a succinct summation of the totality of all experimental and observational evidence.”

• Source: Marion King Hubbert, 'Critique of the Principle of Uniformity', in C. C. Albritton (ed.), Uniformity and Simplicity (1967), 29.

• See Also:
  • M_King_Hubbert_quotes
  • M_King_Hubbert_quotes/Principle_of_Uniformity

---

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.)

• See Also:
  • Edwin_Hubble_quotes
  • Edwin_Hubble_quotes/Scientific_Judgments

---

Byron_K_Jennings

Science is a Construction

“Science is the construction of parsimonious, internally consistent models that can reliably predict future observations.”

• Source: Byron K. Jennings. As quoted in Mark Buchanan, 'Thesis: Madness in the Method', Nature Physics (1 Feb 2009), 5, No. 2, 83.

• See Also:
  • Byron_K_Jennings_quotes
  • Byron_K_Jennings_quotes/Science_is_a_Construction

---

Crows

“While seeing any number of black crows does not prove all the crows are black, seeing one white crow disproves it. Thus science proceeds not by proving models correct but by discarding false ones or improving incomplete ones.”

• Source: Byron K. Jennings, In 'On the Nature of Science', Physics in Canada (Jan/Feb 2007), 63, No. 1, 7.

• See Also:
  • Byron_K_Jennings_quotes
  • Byron_K_Jennings_quotes/Crows

---

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).

• See Also:
  • David_Kipping_quotes
  • David_Kipping_quotes/Parent_Reality_Different

---

Rendered Reality

“Reality could be rendered in real-time locally to deceive the inhabitants, rather than attempting to generate the entire system at once. Indeed, quantum systems need not truly be emulated, only our perceived observations of those systems, which may be far easier.”

• 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).

• See Also:
  • David_Kipping_quotes
  • David_Kipping_quotes/Rendered_Reality

---

Lawrence_M_Krauss

Think the Unthinkable

“Science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide—rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.”

• Source: Lawrence M. Krauss, In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).

• See Also:
  • Lawrence_M_Krauss_quotes
  • Lawrence_M_Krauss_quotes/Think_the_Unthinkable

---

Visible Matter

“There is already overwhelming evidence that the visible matter within galaxies may account for less than 10 percent of the galaxies’ actual mass: the rest, not yet directly detectable by observers on the earth, is probably distributed within and around each galaxy.”

• Source: Lawrence M. Krauss, (1986). As quoted in Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations.

• See Also:
  • Lawrence_M_Krauss_quotes
  • Lawrence_M_Krauss_quotes/Visible_Matter

---

Robert_Lawrence_Kuhn

Scientific Method

“I like to distinguish between the scientific method, which is applied to all materialistic theories. The scientific method is one of observation or experimentation, repeatability, falsification, the repeatability by different techniques of different labs, or prediction and results. It's a scientific method. I say that if it's a non-physical theory, or the theory has any aspect of non-physicalism to it, it doesn't have to be all, any aspect invalidates, to some degree invalidates, the scientific method as I just described from being applicable. And I think there's a tendency in some theories that have some non-physical aspect to try to show their legitimacy by applying the scientific method... I think that's a false desire, because once you're non-physical you are invalidating, to one degree or another, the scientific method. Maybe not totally, but in some degree.”

• Source: Kuhn, Robert Lawrence. Within the YouTube video “All 325+ Competing Consciousness Theories In One Video” on the Essentia Foundation channel, https://youtu.be/h5G6Oc_V3Lw?si=jzabxeu55GvABDFs, published 2025-08-22, video offset at 1:32:25.

• See Also:
  • Robert_Lawrence_Kuhn_quotes
  • Robert_Lawrence_Kuhn_quotes/Scientific_Method

---

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.

• See Also:
  • Pierre-Simon_Laplace_quotes
  • Pierre-Simon_Laplace_quotes/System_of_Nature

---

Dietrich_Leibfried

Quantum Cave

“In this sense, quantum mechanics places the observer in the situation of Plato's prisoner — chained in a cave so he can see only the shadows of objects outside the cave, not the objects themselves.”

• Source: Leibfried, D., Pfau, T., & Monroe, C. (1998). Shadows and Mirrors: Reconstructing Quantum States of Atom Motion. Physics Today, 51(22). Retrieved from http://iontrap.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WignerPhysicsToday.pdf.

• See Also:
  • Dietrich_Leibfried_quotes
  • Dietrich_Leibfried_quotes/Quantum_Cave

---

William_H_McCrea

Not Everything Predictable

“Our experience shows that not everything that is observable and measurable is predictable, no matter how complete our past observations may have been.”

• Source: Sir William Hunter McCrea, In Presidential Address (8 Feb 1963), Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (Mar 1963), 4, 197.

• See Also:
  • William_H_McCrea_quotes
  • William_H_McCrea_quotes/Not_Everything_Predictable

---

John_von_Neumann

Science Models

“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work — that is, correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area.”

• Source: John von Neumann, 'Method in the Physical Sciences', in The Unity of Knowledge, edited by L. Leary (1955), 158. Reprinted in John Von Neumann, F. Bródy (ed.) and Tibor Vámos (ed.), The Neumann Compendium (2000), 628.

• See Also:
  • John_von_Neumann_quotes
  • John_von_Neumann_quotes/Science_Models

---

Isaac_Newton

Analysis

“As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.”

• Source: Sir Isaac Newton, From Opticks, (1704, 2nd ed. 1718), Book 3, Query 31, 380.

• See Also:
  • Isaac_Newton_quotes
  • Isaac_Newton_quotes/Analysis

---

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.

• See Also:
  • J_Robert_Oppenheimer_quotes
  • J_Robert_Oppenheimer_quotes/Science_Starts_with_Preconception

---

Louis_Pasteur

Preparation for Observation

“In the fields of observation chance favors only those minds which are prepared.”

• Source: Inaugural lecture as professor and dean of the faculty of science, University of Lille, Douai, France, December 7, 1854

• See Also:
  • Louis_Pasteur_quotes
  • Louis_Pasteur_quotes/Preparation_for_Observation

---

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.”

• Source: From the Q&A portion of the lecture From Neurons to Consciousness given by Steven Picker at the New College of the Humanities, 2017. Video available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrVBkxLcqrw&t=4057s (posted 20170309).

• See Also:
  • Steven_Pinker_quotes
  • Steven_Pinker_quotes/Neurons_to_Consciousness

---

Frank_H_T_Rhodes

Scientific Method Essence

“The essence of scientific method is the method of inductive and empirical enquiry, the process of observation, experiment and hypothesis... The second important aspect of scientific method is its abstraction.”

• Source: Frank H. T. Rhodes in the essay “Christianity in a Mechanistic Universe”, included in the book “Christianity in a Mechanistic Universe and Other Essays” edited by Donald M. MacKay, published by Inter-Varsity Press, Chicago, Illinois, in 1965.

• See Also:
  • Frank_H_T_Rhodes_quotes
  • Frank_H_T_Rhodes_quotes/Scientific_Method_Essence

---

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).”

• Source: Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. DOI: 10.1007/BF01405730. Retrieved 2018-08-24 from http://urbanpolicy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Rittel+Webber_1973_PolicySciences4-2.pdf. Section II.

• See Also:
  • Rittel_and_Webber_quotes
  • Rittel_and_Webber_quotes/Problem_Defining_Problems

---

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

• See Also:
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes/Exact_Science_Approximate

---

Scientific Method Complicated and Simple

“Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement.”

• Source: Bertrand Russell (1931), In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 3.

• See Also:
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes/Scientific_Method_Complicated_and_Simple

---

Fire Burns

“The first man who said 'fire burns' was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands — a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than by mere generalization.”

• Source: Bertrand Russell, (1931), In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 3.

• See Also:
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes/Fire_Burns

---

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.

• See Also:
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes
  • Bertrand_Russell_quotes/Significance_of_Fact

---

Erwin_Schrödinger

Measurement and Observation

“The state of affairs... is often described by saying that, as the technique of measuring is refined, the observer is gradually replaced by more and more elaborate apparatus. Now this is, certainly in the present case, not true; he is not gradually replaced, but is so from the outset... The observer's colourful impression of the phenomenon vouchsafes not the slightest clue to its physical nature.”

• 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.

• See Also:
  • Erwin_Schrödinger_quotes
  • Erwin_Schrödinger_quotes/Measurement_and_Observation

---

Observation and Theory

“Scientific theories serve to facilitate the survey of our observations and experimental findings... This procedure, while very useful for our remembering the facts in a well-ordered pattern, tends to obliterate the distinction between the actual observations and the theory arisen from them. And since the former always are of some sensual quality, theories are easily thought to account for sensual qualities; which, of course, they never do.”

• 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.

• See Also:
  • Erwin_Schrödinger_quotes
  • Erwin_Schrödinger_quotes/Observation_and_Theory

---

Adam_Smith

Three Great Orders

“The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country... naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are the three great, original, and constituent orders of every civilised society... The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other... The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first... Employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society... But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary... The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two... The interest of the dealers... is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”

• Source: Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, England: ‎W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Book I chapter XI.

• See Also:
  • Adam_Smith_quotes
  • Adam_Smith_quotes/Three_Great_Orders

---

Max_Tegmark

Mathematical Computer Game

“The closer I look at things that seemed non-mathematical, like my arm and my hand, the more mathematical it turns out to be. Could it be that our world also then is really just as mathematical as the computer game reality?”

• Source: Youtube The Great Math Mystery - Documentary posted by Aerospace Engineering 2017-03-03.

• See Also:
  • Max_Tegmark_quotes
  • Max_Tegmark_quotes/Mathematical_Computer_Game

---

Patrick_Vlaskovits

Faster Horse

“However, even if Ford didn’t verbalize his thoughts on customers’ ostensible inability to communicate their unmet needs for innovative products — history indicates that Henry Ford most certainly did think along those lines... Henry Ford froze the design of the Model T... Ford had no compelling reason to innovate in any other sphere other than cost and price reduction... But everything changed with the onset of the innovations introduced by General Motors in the 1920s, which took the direct opposite of Henry Ford’s tack of “Any color … so long as it is black” and is best summed up by Alfred Sloan’s consumer-research driven “A Car for Every Purse and Purpose”... In 1921, the Ford Motor Company sold about 2/3 of all the cars built in the U.S. By 1926, this share had fallen to approximately 1/3. And in 1927, when Ford belatedly responded (at tremendous financial cost and internal strife) to changes in the market’s tastes and competitive innovation by shutting down production temporarily to re-tool his factories and bring the Model A to the market, that percentage fell to about 15%... Yes, some customers in certain types of businesses are quite capable of verbalizing precisely what sort of innovative product one could build and sell them. And of course, customers in other types of businesses are wholly incapable of verbalizing, with any sort of fidelity whatsoever, what they need and why they need it. An innovator should have understanding of one’s customers and their problems via empirical, observational, anecdotal methods or even intuition. They should also feel free to ignore customers’ inputs. Because by now it should be clear that Ford’s adherence to his vision of the mass-market car and how to materialize that vision was instrumental in both his early success in growing Ford Motor Company as well as his later failure to respond in a timely and effective manner to rapid innovation in the marketplace.”'

• Source: Patrick Vlaskovits in the article “Henry Ford, Innovation, and That Faster Horse Quote”, published by Harvard Business Review, 2011-08-29. Online at https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast retrieved 2024-05-28.

• See Also:
  • Henry_Ford_quotes/Faster_Horse
  • Patrick_Vlaskovits_quotes
  • Patrick_Vlaskovits_quotes/Faster_Horse

---

Gerald_Weinberg

Egoless Programming and Cognitive Dissonance

“Now, what cognitive dissonance has to do with our programming conflict should be vividly clear. A programmer who truly sees his program as an extension of his own ego is not going to be trying to find all the errors in that program. On the contrary, he is going to be trying to prove that the program is correct — even if this means the oversight of errors which are monstrous to another eye.”

• Source: Chapter 4. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.

• See Also:
  • Gerald_Weinberg_quotes
  • Gerald_Weinberg_quotes/Egoless_Programming_and_Cognitive_Dissonance

---

William_Whewell

Hypothesis Should Foretell

“The hypotheses which we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this; our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed; ... because if the rule prevails, it includes all cases; and will determine them all, if we can only calculate its real consequences. Hence it will predict the results of new combinations, as well as explain the appearances which have occurred in old ones. And that it does this with certainty and correctness, is one mode in which the hypothesis is to be verified as right and useful.”

• Source: From the book 'The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded Upon Their History', Volume 2. by William Whewell. Publication date 1840. Pages 62-63. Online at https://ia800209.us.archive.org/19/items/philosophyinduc00whewgoog/philosophyinduc00whewgoog.pdf.

• See Also:
  • William_Whewell_quotes
  • William_Whewell_quotes/Hypothesis_Should_Foretell

---

Shoshana_Zuboff

The Panopticon

“The Panopticon was an architectural innovation developed by the moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In Foucault's view, it is both a sign of and metaphor for this new disciplinary society. Bentham extolled the Panopticon as a technological triumph capable of exploiting the productive potential of those who had flouted, thwarted, or otherwise escaped social authority. His initial targets were convicts and paupers, though he did not fail to see the potential usefulness of the Panopticon for students, asylum inmates, and workers. The architectural plan conceived by Bentham was first constructed by his brother Samuel, an engineer, in 1787 for a factory at Critchef in Russia. It was later adapted to the problems of housing convicts and paupers. The structure consisted of a twelve-sided polygon formed in iron and sheathed in glass in order to create the effect of what Bentham called 'universal transparency.' A central tower, pierced with wide windows, opened onto the inner wall of the surrounding polygonal structure, which itself was divided into narrow cells extending across the width of the building. Each cell had a window on both the inner and outer walls, allowing light to cross it and illuminate all the inhabitants to an observer in the central tower, while that observer could not be seen from any one of the cells. Mirrors were fixed around the tower to direct extra light into these apartments.”

• Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 320. ISBN:0465032125.

• See Also:
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes/The_Panopticon

---

Panopticon Recording

“Information systems that translate, record, and display human behavior can provide the computer age version of universal transparency with a degree of illumination that would have exceeded even Bentham's most outlandish fantasies. Such systems can become information panopticons that, freed from the constraints of space and time, do not depend upon the physical arrangement of buildings or the laborious record keeping of industrial administration. They do not require the mutual presence of objects of observation. They do not even require the presence of an observer. Information systems can automatically and continuously record almost anything their designers want to capture, regardless of the specific intentions brought to the design process or the motives that guide data interpretation and utilization.”

• Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 322. ISBN:0465032125.

• See Also:
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes/Panopticon_Recording

---

Anticipatory Conformity

“Anticipatory conformity is a tactic for avoiding the dread associated with the possibility of shame. It accepts visibility and adapts to it by producing behavior that minimizes the risk of unwanted discovery. As the immediate environment is saturated with measurement, the pressure of visibility begins to reorganize behavior at its source, shaping it in conformity with the normative standards of the observer.”

• Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 345. ISBN:0465032125.

• See Also:
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes
  • Shoshana_Zuboff_quotes/Anticipatory_Conformity

---