January 2012
32 posts
2 tags
“ “As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest...”
– Václav Havel, Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. Former President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic, (1936-2011), Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala (English translation by Paul Wilson), 1990, Ch. 1 : Growing Up...
1 tag
“ “The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the...”
– Lewis Thomas, physician, poet, etymologist, essayist (1913-1993) cited in Forbes, Feb 1, 1998.
5 tags
“ “What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on earth, of all the...”
– Tim Maudlin, (B.A. Yale, Physics and Philosophy; Ph.D. Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science), ☞ What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology, The Atlantic, Jan 2012.
3 tags
““Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.” ”
– Groucho Marx, American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit (1890-1977)
1 tag
“ “There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that...”
– Chuck Palahniuk, American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist, Survivor, W. W. Norton, 1999. (Illustration: Termes Thoughts) See also: ☞ ‘To understand is to perceive patterns’
4 tags
“ “Memories are not static entities; over time they shift and migrate...”
– Hugo Spiers is a neuroscientist and lecturer at the institute of behavioural neuroscience at University College London, What are memories made of?, The Guardian, Jan 14, 2012.
4 tags
“The Future Belongs to the Curious
“We’re all born with it. Albert...”
– Manifesto, Skillshare, Jan 10, 2012
2 tags
“ “Chance favors the connected mind.” ”
– Steven Johnson, American popular science author, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, Riverhead Hardcover, 2010.
2 tags
“Why would someone learn 20 or 50 languages?
“Hyperpolyglot, Alexander...”
– Alexander Arguelles, American scholar of foreign languages, polyglot, Adventures with an Extreme Polyglot: Excerpt from ‘Babel No More’, cited in Michael Erard, Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners, Free Press, 2012.
2 tags
“ “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” ”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist (1844-1900), Thus Spoke Zarathustra, cited in Keith Ansell-Pearson, Nietzsche and Modern German Thought, Routledge, 2002, p. 155.
2 tags
“ “Much education today consists of a high degree of specialization, which...”
– Jacque Fresco, self-educated structural designer, philosopher of science, concept artist, educator, and futurist, The Best That Money Can’t Buy: Beyond Poverty, Politics, & War, Global Cyber Visions, 2002 (tnx mymindtank)
4 tags
“ “Now, why should the universe be constructed in such a way that atoms acquire...”
– Marcus Chown, award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster, currently cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine, The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms, Oxford University Press, 2001
3 tags
“Our Selves, Other Cells. Baby’s cells can live a lifetime in mother’s...”
– Jena Pincott, Science writer, Our Selves, Other Cells, excerpt from Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy, Free Press, 2011.
3 tags
“ “Language plays a tremendous role in human affairs. It serves as a means of...”
– Irving J. Lee, lecturer, teacher, former professor at Northwestern University (1909-1955), cited in Martin H. Levinson; ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 55, 1998, Opium: A History, Questia Online Library
3 tags
“Nicholas Carr on Books That Are Never Done Being Written
“Digital text...”
– Nicholas Carr, American writer, Books That Are Never Done Being Written , WSJ.com, Dec 31, 2011.
1 tag
“ “Understanding order begins with understanding patterns.” ”
– R. Buckminster Fuller, American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International (1895-1983)
5 tags
“ “Metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use...”
– George Lakoff, American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, cited in Daniel Lende, Brainy Trees, Metaphorical Forests: On Neuroscience, Embodiment, and Architecture, Neuroanthropology, Jan 10, 2012. See also: ☞ George Lakoff on metaphors,...
4 tags
“ “Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical...”
– Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American inventor, mechanical and electrical engineer. He was an important contributor to the birth of commercial electricity (1856-1943), The inventions, researches and writings of Nikola Tesla, Barnes & Noble, 1992, p. 298.
2 tags
“ “To make a face from marble means to remove from the slab everything that...”
– Anton Chekhov, Russian physician, dramatist and author (1860-1904), cited in Lionel Kelly, Anton Checkhov and Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Strategies of Reading, JSTOR: The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 26 (1996), pp. 218-231.
3 tags
“ “Isn’t language loss a good thing, because fewer languages mean easier...”
– Jared Diamond, American scientist and author, currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal, Hutchinson Radius, 1991. See also: ☞ Why Do Languages Die? Urbanization, the state and the rise of nationalism
5 tags
“ “If men were rational in their conduct, that is to say, if they acted in...”
– Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic (1872-1970), Icarus, or, the Future of Science, (1924), Transcribed by Cosma Rohilla Shalizi, Berkeley, California, 11 June 1994.
3 tags
“ “We’ve discovered that the universe is not a place; it’s a story, a story...”
– Brian Swimme, Ph.D. from the department of mathematics at the University of Oregon for work in singularity theory, he teaches evolutionary cosmology at California Institute of Integral Studies, The Powers of the Universe
2 tags
“ “Our culture is an edifice built of externalized memories.” ”
– Joshua Foer, American science journalist, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Penguin Press HC, New York, 2011
3 tags
“ “How we perceive the world and how we act in it are products of how and what we...”
– Joshua Foer, American science journalist, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Penguin Press HC, New York, 2011
1 tag
“ “It is forgetting, not remembering, that is the essence of what makes us human....”
– Joshua Foer, American science journalist, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Penguin Press HC, New York, 2011
5 tags
“
“It [writing] has enormous meta-cognitive implications. The power is this:...”
– John Rogers Searle, American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Language, Mind and Consciousness (interviews) (Illustration: Univers Font Study on the Behance Network)
4 tags
“ “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the...”
– John Maeda, Japanese-American graphic designer, computer scientist, university professor, and author, The Laws of Simplicity (pdf), MIT Press, 2006
2 tags
“
“People sometimes act as though owning books you haven’t read...”
– Jonathan Lethem, American novelist, essayist and short story writer, cited in Writers and Their Books: Inside Famous Authors’ Personal Libraries, The Atlantic, Dec 21, 2011 (Illustration)
3 tags
“ “Memes are astral genes, information clusters without bodies that love to...”
– David Jay Brown, American writer and scientific researcher, Brainchild, New Falcon Publications, 1988, cited in Epilogue from Brainchild, Tribe, Aug 26, 2004
1 tag
“ “There was a man who became so intrigued with watching salamanders, that...”
– Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer (1914-1984)
3 tags
“ “Internal mental experience is not the product of a photographic process....”
– Daniel J. Siegel, completed his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and his post-graduate medical education at UCLA, The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, W. W. Norton & Company, 2007, p. 166-167.
2 tags
“
“I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I...”
– Jeanette Winterson, British novelist, Gut symmetries, Granta Books, 1997, p. 25. (tnx withnailrules)
December 2011
31 posts
3 tags
“ “Here’s to our 2012 being magical, synchronistic, surprising and...”
– Flemming Funch on G+
2 tags
“ “The scientific method,” Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, “is...”
– Neil Postman, American author, media theorist and cultural critic (1931-2003), The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, Vintage, 1996.
2 tags
“ “Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge...”
– David Bohm, American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy, neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project. (1917-1992), Changing consciousness: exploring the hidden source of the social, political, and environmental crises facing our world,...
3 tags
“ “Mindfulness has never met a cognition it didn’t like.” ”
– Daniel J. Siegel, completed his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and his post-graduate medical education at UCLA, The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, W. W. Norton & Company, 2007
4 tags
“ “There was a time in the ancient world - a very long time - in which the...”
– Stephen Greenblatt, literary critic, theorist and scholar, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
3 tags
“ “Our children no longer want to become physicists and astronauts. They...”
– Albert-László Barabási, physicist, Professor and Director of Northeastern University’s Center for Complex Network Research (CCNR), The network takeover (pdf), Nature Physics, Vol 8, Jan 2012.
2 tags
“ “Evolution is no linear family tree, but change in the single multidimensional...”
– Lynn Margulis, American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1938-2011), What Is Life?, University of California Press, 2000.
3 tags
“ “Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the...”
– George Lakoff, American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we live by, University Of Chicago Press, 2003.
2 tags
“
“There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely...”
– Martin Gardner, American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics (1914-2010), Mathematical magic show: more puzzles, games, diversions, illusions & other mathematical sleight-of-mind from Scientific American, Vintage Books, 1978, p. 21. (Illustration: Agnes Denes,...
3 tags
“ “In this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may...”
– Alan Lightman, American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Einstein’s Dreams, London, Vintage, 2004.
4 tags
“ “Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first...”
– Alan Lightman, American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Einstein’s dreams, Pantheon Books, 1993, p. 38.
6 tags
“ “We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The...”
– Benjamin Lee Whorf, American linguist (1897-1941), 1956, p. 213, cited in Does language determine thought? Boroditsky’s (2001) research on Chinese speakers’ conception of time (pdf)
4 tags
“I must confess the language of symbols is to me
A Babylonish dialect
Which...”
– Sir Richard Phillips, English schoolteacher, author and publisher (1767-1840), ‘Additional Observations on the Use of Chemical Symbols’, Philosophical Magazine, Third series (1834), 4, 251. Cited in Timothy L. Alborn, ‘Negotiating Notation: Chemical Symbols and British Society,...
4 tags
“ “If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then,...”
– Alfred Korzybski, Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered most for developing the theory of general semantics (1879-1950), Science & Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Institute of GS, 1994, p.61. See also: Map–territory relation - a...
5 tags
“ “Coral reefs are sometimes called “the cities of the sea”, and part of the...”
– Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, cited in ‘To understand is to perceive patterns’ - B. Fuller, Powell, Johnson, West, Kurzweil & video narration by J. Silva
3 tags
“ “The pattern, and it alone, brings into being and causes to pass away and...”
– Isaiah Berlin, British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian, (1909-1997), The proper study of mankind: an anthology of essays, Chatto & Windus, 1997, p. 129. See also: ☞ ‘To understand is to perceive patterns’ - B. Fuller, Powell, Johnson, West, Kurzweil & video...
6 tags
“Sir Martin Rees on our understanding of the universe
“I would say that...”
– Sir Martin Rees, British cosmologist and astrophysicist, former President of the Royal Society, “There is Always Room for Mysteries”, The European, 04.10.2010 (Illustration)
1 tag
“ “A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second...”
– Douglas Adams, English writer and dramatist (1952-2001), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Harmony Books, 1980