Last month, I began a collection of a few of my favorite quotes. Here's the latest edition:
"My children and I have established a supply and demand economy for our household... they demand and I supply."
A couple of weekends ago, I encountered another fantastic example of William Gibson's quote "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
Slamball!
Anyone who recalls the sports of the future scenes from either Starship Troopers or BSG will have a definite sense of deja vu as they watch the Slamball coverage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ocu2OguxwQ
Clearly, the future is here.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Favorite Quotes
There are a few quotes I've run into over the years that I think are particularly notable / insightful. The first candidates for my top 10 are accumulated here:
"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
- William Gibson
"Men want every woman to fulfill their one desire, and women want one man to fulfill their every desire."
- unknown
"Faith is suspending doubt long enough to experience the truth."
"Lots of people have lots of brilliant ideas all the time -- it's the ones that actually realize those ideas (their own and others') that make the difference."
What are your favorites?
"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
- William Gibson
"Men want every woman to fulfill their one desire, and women want one man to fulfill their every desire."
- unknown
"Faith is suspending doubt long enough to experience the truth."
"Lots of people have lots of brilliant ideas all the time -- it's the ones that actually realize those ideas (their own and others') that make the difference."
What are your favorites?
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Wonderful Dysphoria
The other night, Monday, I happened to watch Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It turned out to be uniquely appropriate timing, since one of the principle themes of the movie is the culmination of Mr. Magorium's life. Although there are several inspired moments within the movie, by far the most poignant sequence takes place as Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), the toy store manager, finally confronts the reality that Mr. Magorium will die:
M.Magorium: (in a quiet sigh) oh, Mahoney…
Mahoney: Don’t go.
M.Magorium: My darling
Mahoney: I’m not ready, I’m not ready for it to end.
M.Magorium: I’m sorry.
(Mahoney sits down a step)
M.Magorium: When King Lear dies in Act Five do you know what William Shakespeare has written? He’s written, "He Dies." That's all, nothing more. No fan fare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words.
The culmination of the most influential work of the dramatic literature is, "He Dies." It takes Shakespeare’s genius to come up with, he dies.
And yet every time I read those two words I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know its only natural to be sad, but not because of the words he dies, but because of the life we saw prior to the words.
I’ve lived all five of my acts Mahoney and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go. I’m only asking that you turn the page. Continue reading. And let the next story begin.
And if anyone ever asks what became of me, you relay my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple, and modest, he died.
Mahoney: I love you.
M.Magorium: I love you too.
(M.Magorium takes Mahoney by the hands and gets her up to her feet)
M.Magorium: (he sighs) Your life is an occasion......rise to it.
(he kisses her forehead and walks away)
M.Magorium: (in a quiet sigh) oh, Mahoney…
Mahoney: Don’t go.
M.Magorium: My darling
Mahoney: I’m not ready, I’m not ready for it to end.
M.Magorium: I’m sorry.
(Mahoney sits down a step)
M.Magorium: When King Lear dies in Act Five do you know what William Shakespeare has written? He’s written, "He Dies." That's all, nothing more. No fan fare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words.
The culmination of the most influential work of the dramatic literature is, "He Dies." It takes Shakespeare’s genius to come up with, he dies.
And yet every time I read those two words I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know its only natural to be sad, but not because of the words he dies, but because of the life we saw prior to the words.
I’ve lived all five of my acts Mahoney and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go. I’m only asking that you turn the page. Continue reading. And let the next story begin.
And if anyone ever asks what became of me, you relay my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple, and modest, he died.
Mahoney: I love you.
M.Magorium: I love you too.
(M.Magorium takes Mahoney by the hands and gets her up to her feet)
M.Magorium: (he sighs) Your life is an occasion......rise to it.
(he kisses her forehead and walks away)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
You Can Do Anything
After eight weeks of physical therapy, ending last Wednesday, my penultimate check-up went well. According to the Dr., "You Can Do Anything." I haven't put this to the test, but it's good to know. ;-)
Speaking of being able to do anything. Have you read The Secret or tapped into the flurry of media coverage surrounding the book. What do you think?
Speaking of being able to do anything. Have you read The Secret or tapped into the flurry of media coverage surrounding the book. What do you think?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
The Matrix Has You...
A while back, I read David Deutsch’s book The Fabric of Reality. Continuing with my clogging: As one of the Amazon reviewer’s comments, “Deutsch's presentation is fascinating, mind-expanding, challenging, provocative, and--at times--riveting. It is also infuriating, perplexing, reductive, and--at times--vague. (Please note: I am not convinced that the multiverse as Deutsch describes it exists, nor am I threatened by the possibility that it might. As a result, I do not mean to quarrel with--or support--the idea itself. Instead, I am reviewing Deutsch's book from the point of view of a lay reader.)”
The first two sentences are right on, although, I would also have included “dense reading.”
And, I have to say that although Deutsch’s “proof” for his version of multiverse theory is pretty thin, once presented, the theory is intuitively obvious, and makes perfect sense of all of the classic paradoxes in quantum theory. So much sense that they no longer seem like paradoxes; they just seem like the logical outcome of the multiverse. ...I’d love to see a truly (complete) scientific investigation of the multiverse theory. [Additional detail about the Many-Worlds Interpretation or MWI.]
However, what I enjoyed more about the book, and my original motivation for buying it, came from the proposition that the synthesis of the theories of evolution, computation, and knowledge with quantum physics could completely describe the physical world. As each of these is largely orthogonal to the others, and encompass pretty much everything there is, I tend to agree... as far as the argument goes.
In 1999, with a crowd of fellow Legend developers, I watched The Matrix in awe; the best science fiction movie since Star Wars, and in some ways, perhaps, the best sci-fi movie, ever. At the time, I took it to be a fascinating instantiation of the classic question “When you wake up from a dream, how do you really know that you’re not in another dream?” But, then, I didn’t realize how real the model was....
In the years that followed, I read various books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Although it all seemed pretty abstract, the notion that the reality that we westerners think of as “real” may not be as real as we think, came through loud and clear. And, for me, the metaphor of The Matrix snapped into a new focus.
The Disappearance of the Universe provides yet another perspective -- one that may seem insane, and yet, for me, made sense of a whole range of questions that I’ve never seen answered particularly well anywhere else.
Now, reading The Universe in a Single Atom, I’ve come across a number of quotes that I love. There are too many to share them all here, but here’s one that resonated particularly well with debates I’ve had with various folks over the past twenty-some years:
“I have noticed that many people hold an assumption that the scientific view of the world should be the basis for all knowledge and all that is knowable. This is scientific materialism. Although I am not aware of a school of thought that explicitly propounds this notion, it seems to be a common unexamined presupposition. This view upholds a belief in an objective world, independent of the contingency of its observers. It assumes that the data being analyzed within an experiment are independent of the preconceptions, perceptions, and experience of the scientist analyzing them.”
“Underlying this view is the assumption that, in the final analysis, matter [and energy]; as it can be described by physics and as it is governed by the laws of physics, is all there is. Accordingly, this view would uphold that psychology can be reduced to biology, biology to chemistry, and chemistry to physics. My concern here is not so much to argue against this reductionist position (although I myself do not share it) but to draw attention to a vitally important point: that these ideas do not constitute scientific knowledge; rather they represent a philosophical, in fact a metaphysical, position. The view that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles is, to my mind, as much a metaphysical position as the view that an organizing intelligence created and controls reality.”
And, another that resonates marvelously with Disappearance:
“According to the early scriptures, the Buddha himself never directly answered questions put to him about the origin of the universe. ...Interpretations of the meaning of Buddha’s refusal to answer these questions directly vary. One view is that the Buddha refused to answer because these metaphysical questions do not directly pertain to liberation. Another view, primarily argued by Nagarjuna, is that insofar as the questions were framed on the presupposition of the intrinsic reality of things, and not on dependent origination, responding would have led to a deeper entrenchment in the belief in solid, inherent existence.”
...
It’s time to ask yourself ‘what do you believe?’ Dr. Jones...
The first two sentences are right on, although, I would also have included “dense reading.”
And, I have to say that although Deutsch’s “proof” for his version of multiverse theory is pretty thin, once presented, the theory is intuitively obvious, and makes perfect sense of all of the classic paradoxes in quantum theory. So much sense that they no longer seem like paradoxes; they just seem like the logical outcome of the multiverse. ...I’d love to see a truly (complete) scientific investigation of the multiverse theory. [Additional detail about the Many-Worlds Interpretation or MWI.]
However, what I enjoyed more about the book, and my original motivation for buying it, came from the proposition that the synthesis of the theories of evolution, computation, and knowledge with quantum physics could completely describe the physical world. As each of these is largely orthogonal to the others, and encompass pretty much everything there is, I tend to agree... as far as the argument goes.
In 1999, with a crowd of fellow Legend developers, I watched The Matrix in awe; the best science fiction movie since Star Wars, and in some ways, perhaps, the best sci-fi movie, ever. At the time, I took it to be a fascinating instantiation of the classic question “When you wake up from a dream, how do you really know that you’re not in another dream?” But, then, I didn’t realize how real the model was....
In the years that followed, I read various books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Although it all seemed pretty abstract, the notion that the reality that we westerners think of as “real” may not be as real as we think, came through loud and clear. And, for me, the metaphor of The Matrix snapped into a new focus.
The Disappearance of the Universe provides yet another perspective -- one that may seem insane, and yet, for me, made sense of a whole range of questions that I’ve never seen answered particularly well anywhere else.
Now, reading The Universe in a Single Atom, I’ve come across a number of quotes that I love. There are too many to share them all here, but here’s one that resonated particularly well with debates I’ve had with various folks over the past twenty-some years:
“I have noticed that many people hold an assumption that the scientific view of the world should be the basis for all knowledge and all that is knowable. This is scientific materialism. Although I am not aware of a school of thought that explicitly propounds this notion, it seems to be a common unexamined presupposition. This view upholds a belief in an objective world, independent of the contingency of its observers. It assumes that the data being analyzed within an experiment are independent of the preconceptions, perceptions, and experience of the scientist analyzing them.”
“Underlying this view is the assumption that, in the final analysis, matter [and energy]; as it can be described by physics and as it is governed by the laws of physics, is all there is. Accordingly, this view would uphold that psychology can be reduced to biology, biology to chemistry, and chemistry to physics. My concern here is not so much to argue against this reductionist position (although I myself do not share it) but to draw attention to a vitally important point: that these ideas do not constitute scientific knowledge; rather they represent a philosophical, in fact a metaphysical, position. The view that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles is, to my mind, as much a metaphysical position as the view that an organizing intelligence created and controls reality.”
And, another that resonates marvelously with Disappearance:
“According to the early scriptures, the Buddha himself never directly answered questions put to him about the origin of the universe. ...Interpretations of the meaning of Buddha’s refusal to answer these questions directly vary. One view is that the Buddha refused to answer because these metaphysical questions do not directly pertain to liberation. Another view, primarily argued by Nagarjuna, is that insofar as the questions were framed on the presupposition of the intrinsic reality of things, and not on dependent origination, responding would have led to a deeper entrenchment in the belief in solid, inherent existence.”
...
It’s time to ask yourself ‘what do you believe?’ Dr. Jones...
As Luck Would Have It...
Holy smokes! It has been almost a month since my last update… I’ve ventured dangerously into slog territory. ...So, does copying others' material result in your blog becoming a clog?
Regardless… I’ll reference an interesting Scientific American article by Michael Shermer.
As someone who has debated the nature and origin of “luck” this article perfectly captures the nuances of the topic and beautifully illustrates what it means to be a “lucky person.”
In case you still haven’t clicked on the above link, here’s the paragraph that hooked me:
"Lucky people are far more satisfied with all areas of their lives than unlucky or neutral people," Wiseman reveals in his charming and insightful book, The Luck Factor (Miramax Books, 2003). Does this satisfied state of mind translate into actual life outcomes that someone might call lucky? It does. Here's how.
Now, are you clicking on the link? ;-)
Looks like another book for the reading list.
Regardless… I’ll reference an interesting Scientific American article by Michael Shermer.
As someone who has debated the nature and origin of “luck” this article perfectly captures the nuances of the topic and beautifully illustrates what it means to be a “lucky person.”
In case you still haven’t clicked on the above link, here’s the paragraph that hooked me:
"Lucky people are far more satisfied with all areas of their lives than unlucky or neutral people," Wiseman reveals in his charming and insightful book, The Luck Factor (Miramax Books, 2003). Does this satisfied state of mind translate into actual life outcomes that someone might call lucky? It does. Here's how.
Now, are you clicking on the link? ;-)
Looks like another book for the reading list.
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