🪷On Mind: On Machines V

"Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for." (Gottfried W Leibniz,  "Monadology", 1714)

"The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested." (Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot", 1950)

"Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion:, and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make." (Irving J Good, "Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine", Advances in Computers Vol. 6, 1965) 

"The idea of making machines that think has an unfailing fascination, not only for science fiction readers, but for all who can see it is a possible way of gaining some understanding of the working of our own minds. Thinking, however, is not an easily defined phenomenon, although it is often considered to be the process of solving problems." (Edward Ihnatowicz, "The Relevance of Manipulation to the Process of Perception", 1977)

"If cognitive processes can be realized in a general machine then it is possible to execute mental operations in artifacts that are not necessarily subject to the embarrassing spatio-temporal limitations and structural frailties of a biological processor." (Gordon Pask, "Conversation, Cognition and Learnin", 1975)

"It's difficult to be rigorous about whether a machine really 'knows', 'thinks', etc., because we're hard put to define these things. We understand human mental processes only slightly better than a fish understands swimming." (John McCarthy, "The Little Thoughts of Thinking Machines, Psychology Today", 1983) 

"Under pressure from the computer, the question of mind in relation to machine is becoming a central cultural preoccupation." (Sherry Turkle, "The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit", 1984)

"The hardest problems we have to face do not come from philosophical questions about whether brains are machines or not. There is not the slightest reason to doubt that brains are anything other than machines with enormous numbers of parts that work in perfect accord with physical laws. As far as anyone can tell, our minds are merely complex processes. The serious problems come from our having had so little experience with machines of such complexity that we are not yet prepared to think effectively about them." (Marvin Minsky, 1986)

"Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine." (Kurt Gödel)

"The whole thinking process is rather mysterious to us, but I believe that the attempt to make a thinking machine will help us greatly in finding out how we think ourselves." (Alan M Turing)

🅿Gordon Pask - Collected Quotes

"By definition, a pair of inherently unmeasurable, non-stationary systems, are coupled to produce an inherently measurable stationary system." (Gordon Pask, "An Approach to Cybernetics", 1961) 

"Cybernetics offers a scientific approach to the cussedness of organisms, suggests how their behaviours can be catalysed and the mystique and rule of thumb banished." (Gordon Pask, "An Approach to Cybernetics", 1961)

"Cybernetics is the science or the art of manipulating defensible metaphors; showing how they may be constructed and what can be inferred as a result of their existence." (Gordon Pask, "The Cybernetics of Human Performance and Learning", 1966) 

"Development of an organism from a single germ cell into a multicellular entity is a self-organizing system from any point of view and I wish to contend that this self-organizing system is a subsystem of the self-organizing system called 'evolution'." (Gordon Pask, "An Approach to Cybernetics", 1961) 

"Any theory starts off with an observer or experimenter. He has in mind a collection of abstract models with predictive capabilities. Using various criteria of relevance, he selects one of them. In order to actually make predictions, this model must be interpreted and identified with a real assembly to form a theory. The interpretation may be prescriptive or predictive, as when the model is used like a blueprint for designing a machine and predicting its states. On the other hand, it may be descriptive and predictive as it is when the model is used to explain and predict the behaviour of a given organism." (Gordon Pask, "The meaning of cybernetics in the behavioural sciences", 1969)

"There are two subcategories of holist called irredundant holists and redundant holists. Students of both types image an entire system of facts or principles. Though an irredundant holist's image is rightly interconnected, it contains only relevant and essential constitents. In contrast, redundant holists entertain images that contain logically irrelevant or overspecific material, commonly derived from data used to 'enrich' the curriculum, and these students embed the salient facts and principles in a network of redundant items. Though logically irrelevant, the items in question are of great psychological importance to a 'redundant holist', since he uses them to access, retain and manipulate whatever he was originally required to learn." (Gordon Pask, "Learning Strategies and Individual Competence", 1972)

"A learning strategy is comparable in kind with a performance strategy. Each sort of strategy entails decomposing goals into subgoals and applying mental subroutines to achieve the subgoals concerned. The necessary difference between learning strategies and performance is in the domain upon which they operate. Whereas the performance strategy solves problems posed by states of the (usually symbolic) environment, the learning strategy solves the problems posed by deficiencies in the current repertoire of relevant performance strategies; the solutions produced by a learning strategy are performance strategies."(Gordon Pask, "Conversation, Cognition and Learning", 1975)

"If cognitive processes can be realized in a general machine then it is possible to execute mental operations in artifacts that are not necessarily subject to the embarrassing spatio-temporal limitations and structural frailties of a biological processor." (Gordon Pask, "Conversation, Cognition and Learning", 1975)

"Regarding stability, the state trajectories of a system tend to equilibrium. In the simplest case they converge to one point (or different points from different initial states), more commonly to one (or several, according to initial state) fixed point or limit cycle(s) or even torus(es) of characteristic equilibrial behaviour. All this is, in a rigorous sense, contingent upon describing a potential, as a special summation of the multitude of forces acting upon the state in question, and finding the fixed points, cycles, etc., to be minima of the potential function. It is often more convenient to use the equivalent jargon of 'attractors' so that the state of a system is 'attracted' to an equilibrial behaviour. In any case, once in equilibrial conditions, the system returns to its limit, equilibrial behaviour after small, arbitrary, and random perturbations." (Gordon Pask, "Different Kinds of Cybernetics", 1992)

"Systems, acting dynamically, produce (and incidentally, reproduce) their own boundaries, as structures which are complementary (necessarily so) to their motion and dynamics. They are liable, for all that, to instabilities chaos, as commonly interpreted of chaotic form, where nowadays, is remote from the random. Chaos is a peculiar situation in which the trajectories of a system, taken in the traditional sense, fail to converge as they approach their limit cycles or 'attractors' or 'equilibria'. Instead, they diverge, due to an increase, of indefinite magnitude, in amplification or gain." (Gordon Pask, "Different Kinds of Cybernetics", 1992)

🆁William J M Rankine - Collected Quotes

"A hypothetical theory is necessary, as a preliminary step, to reduce the expression of the phenomena to simplicity and order before it is possible to make any progress in framing an abstractive theory." (William J M Rankine, "Outlines of the Science of Energetics", 1855)

"An essential distinction exists between two stages in the process of advancing our knowledge of the laws of physical phenomena; the first stage consists in observing the relations of phenomena, whether of such as occur in the ordinary course of nature, or of such as are artificially produced in experimental investigations, and in expressing the relations so observed by propositions called formal laws. The second stage consists in reducing the formal laws of an entire class of phenomena to the form of a science; that is to say, in discovering the most simple system of principles, from which all the formal laws of the class of phenomena can be deduced as consequences." (William J M Rankine, "Outlines of the Science of Energetics", 1855)

"But in practical science, the question is - What are we to do? - a question which involves the necessity for the immediate adoption of some rule of working. In doubtful cases, we cannot allow our machines and our works of improvement to wait for the advancement of science; and if existing data are insufficient to give an exact solution of the question, that approximate solution must be acted upon which the best data attainable show to be the most probable. A prompt and sound judgment in cases of this kind is one of the characteristics of a Practical Man in the right sense of that term." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"Discrepancy between theory and practice, which in sound physical and mechanical science is a delusion, has a real existence in the minds of men; and that fallacy, through rejected by their judgments, continues to exert and influence over their acts." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"In the original discovery of a proposition of practical utility, by deduction from general principles and from experimental data, a complex algebraical investigation is often not merely useful, but indispensable; but in expounding such a proposition as a part of practical science, and applying it to practical purposes, simplicity is of the importance:—and… the more thoroughly a scientific man has studied higher mathematics, the more fully does he become aware of this truth—and… the better qualified does he become to free the exposition and application of principles from mathematical intricacy." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"In treating of the practical application of scientific principles, an algebraical formula should only be employed when its shortness and simplicity are such as to render it a clearer expression of a proposition or rule than common language would be, and when there is no difficulty in keeping the thing represented by each symbol constantly before the mind."(William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"Mechanical knowledge may [...] be distinguished into three kinds; purely scientific knowledge, purely practical knowledge, and that intermediate kind of knowledge which relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, and which arises from understanding the harmony of theory and practice." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"Some of the evils which are caused by the fallacy of an incompatibility between theory and practice having been described, it must now be admitted, that at the present time those evils show a decided tendency to decline." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"[...] the symbols of algebra, when employed in abstruse and complex theoretical investigations, constitute a sort of thought-saving machine, by whose aid a person skilled in its use can solve problems respecting quantities, and dispense with the mental labour of thinking of the quantities denoted by the symbols, except at the beginning and the end of the operation." (William J M Rankine, "On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics", 1856)

"Thus it is that the commonest objects are by science rendered precious; and in like manner the engineer or the mechanic, who plans and works with understanding of the natural laws that regulate the results of his operations, raise to the dignity of a Sage." (William J M Rankine, "A Manual of Applied Mechanics", 1858)

🅺Kevin Kelly - Collected Quotes

"A network nurtures small failures in order that large failures don't happen as often." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"An event is not triggered by a chain of being, but by a field of causes spreading horizontally, like creeping tide." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"And in computer life, where the term 'species' does not yet have meaning, we see no cascading emergence of entirely new kinds of variety beyond an initial burst. In the wild, in breeding, and in artificial life, we see the emergence of variation. But by the absence of greater change, we also clearly see that the limits of variation appear to be narrowly bounded, and often bounded within species." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"Artificial complex systems will be deliberately infused with organic principles simply to keep them going." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"At the other far extreme, we find many systems ordered as a patchwork of parallel operations, very much as in the neural network of a brain or in a colony of ants. Action in these systems proceeds in a messy cascade of interdependent events. Instead of the discrete ticks of cause and effect that run a clock, a thousand clock springs try to simultaneously run a parallel system. Since there is no chain of command, the particular action of any single spring diffuses into the whole, making it easier for the sum of the whole to overwhelm the parts of the whole. What emerges from the collective is not a series of critical individual actions but a multitude of simultaneous actions whose collective pattern is far more important. This is the swarm model." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"Complexity must be grown from simple systems that already work." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"Dumb parts, properly constituted into a swarm, yield smart results." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"Evolution is a technological, mathematical, informational, and biological process rolled into one. It could almost be said to be a law of physics, a principle that reigns over all created multitudes, whether they have genes or not." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"I take the view that life is a nonspiritual, almost mathematical property that can emerge from networklike arrangements of matter. It is sort of like the laws of probability; if you get enough components together, the system will behave like this, because the law of averages dictates so. Life results when anything is organized according to laws only now being uncovered; it follows rules as strict as those that light obeys." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"If machines knew as much about each other as we know about each other (even in our privacy), the ecology of machines would be indomitable." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"If the system settles into harmony and equilibrium it will eventually stagnate and die."(Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995) 

"Inconsistency is an inevitable trait of any self-sustaining system built up out of consistent parts."  (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"It has long been appreciated by science that large numbers behave differently than small numbers. Mobs breed a requisite measure of complexity for emergent entities. The total number of possible interactions between two or more members accumulates exponentially as the number of members increases. At a high level of connectivity, and a high number of members, the dynamics of mobs takes hold. " (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"It is the great irony of life that a mindless act repeated in sequence can only lead to greater depths of absurdity, while a mindless act performed in parallel by a swarm of individuals can, under the proper conditions, lead to all that we find interesting." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995) 

"Knowledge, truth, and information flow in networks and swarm systems. I have always been interested in the texture of scientific knowledge because it appears to be lumpy and uneven. Much of what we collectively know derives from a few small areas, yet between them lie vast deserts of ignorance. I can interpret that observation now as the effect of positive feedback and attractors. A little bit of knowledge illuminates much around it, and that new illumination feeds on itself, so one corner explodes. The reverse also holds true: ignorance breeds ignorance. Areas where nothing is known, everyone avoids, so nothing is discovered. The result is an uneven landscape of empty know-nothing interrupted by hills of self-organized knowledge." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995) 

"Memory is a reenactment of perception, indistinguishable from the original act of knowing."  (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"The central act of the coming era is to connect everything to everything." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"The hardest lesson for humans to learn: that organic complexity will entail organic time." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"The slightly chaotic character of mind goes even deeper, to a degree our egos may find uncomfortable. It is very likely that intelligence, at bottom, is a probabilistic or statistical phenomenon - on par with the law of averages. The distributed mass of ricocheting impulses which form the foundation of intelligence forbid deterministic results for a given starting point. Instead of repeatable results, outcomes are merely probabilistic. Arriving at a particular thought, then, entails a bit of luck." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"The work of managing a natural environment is inescapably a work of local knowledge." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995) 

"The world of our own making has become so complicated that we must turn to the world of the born to understand how to manage it." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"There are a variety of swarm topologies, but the only organization that holds a genuine plurality of shapes is the grand mesh. In fact, a plurality of truly divergent components can only remain coherent in a network. No other arrangement-chain, pyramid, tree, circle, hub-can contain true diversity working as a whole. This is why the network is nearly synonymous with democracy or the market." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"To err is human; to manage error is system." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"When everything is connected to everything in a distributed network, everything happens at once. When everything happens at once, wide and fast moving problems simply route around any central authority. Therefore overall governance must arise from the most humble interdependent acts done locally in parallel, and not from a central command.A mob can steer itself, and in the territory of rapid, massive, and heterogeneous change, only a mob can steer. To get something from nothing, control must rest at the bottom within simplicity. " (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"Without some element of governance from the top, bottom-up control will freeze when options are many. Without some element of leadership, the many at the bottom will be paralysed with choices." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)

"A standalone object, no matter how well designed, has limited potential for new weirdness. A connected object, one that is a node in a network that interacts in some way with other nodes, can give birth to a hundred unique relationships that it never could do while unconnected. Out of this tangle of possible links come myriad new niches for innovations and interactions." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"Any network has two ingredients: nodes and connections. In the grand network we are now assembling, the size of the nodes is collapsing while the quantity and quality of the connections are exploding." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"At present, there is far more to be gained by pushing the boundaries of what can be done by the bottom than by focusing on what can be done at the top. When it comes to control, there is plenty of room at the bottom. What we are discovering is that peer-based networks with millions of parts, minimal oversight, and maximum connection among them can do far more than anyone ever expected. We don’t yet know what the limits of decentralization are." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"Arriving at standards is often easier said than done. Standard-making is a torturous, bickering process every time. And the end result is universally condemned - since it is the child of compromise. But for a standard to be effective, its adoption must be voluntary. There must be room to dissent by pursuing alternative standards at any time." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"Mathematics says the sum value of a network increases as the square of the number of members. In other words, as the number of nodes in a network increases arithmetically, the value of the network increases exponentially. Adding a few more members can dramatically increase the value for all members." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"Networks have existed in every economy. What’s different now is that networks, enhanced and multiplied by technology, penetrate our lives so deeply that 'network' has become the central metaphor around which our thinking and our economy are organized. Unless we can understand the distinctive logic of networks, we can’t profit from the economic transformation now under way." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"The combinatorial mathematics of networks also boost the opportunities for intermediaries. By definition, every node on a network is a node between other nodes. The more connections there are between members in a net, the more intermediary nodes there can be. Everything in a network is intermediating something else." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"The distinguishing characteristic of networks is that they contain no clear center and no clear outside boundaries. Within a network everything is potentially equidistant from everything else." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"The dynamic of our society, and particularly our new economy, will increasingly obey the logic of networks. Understanding how networks work will be the key to understanding how the economy works." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"The internet model has many lessons for the new economy but perhaps the most important is its embrace of dumb swarm power. The aim of swarm power is superior performance in a turbulent environment. When things happen fast and furious, they tend to route around central control. By interlinking many simple parts into a loose confederation, control devolves from the center to the lowest or outermost points, which collectively keep things on course. A successful system, though, requires more than simply relinquishing control completely to the networked mob." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"The more interconnected a technology is, the more opportunities it spawns for both use and misuse. [… The law of plentitude is most accurately rendered thus: In a network, the more opportunities that are taken, the faster new opportunities arise." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"We are connecting everything to everything. […] When we permit any object to transmit a small amount of data and to receive input from its neighborhood, we change an inert object into an animated node." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"Without some element of governance from the top, bottom-up control will freeze when options are many. Without some element of leadership, the many at the bottom will be paralyzed with choices." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"But nature can’t plan ahead. It does not hoard innovations for later use. If a variation in nature does not provide an immediate survival advantage, it is too costly to maintain and so over time it disappears." (Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010)

"Entropy is the crisp scientific name for waste, chaos, and disorder. As far as we know, the sole law of physics with no known exceptions anywhere in the universe is this: All creation is headed to the basement. Everything in the universe is steadily sliding down the slope toward the supreme equality of wasted heat and maximum entropy." (Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010)

"In the telephone system a century ago, messages dispersed across the network in a pattern that mathematicians associate with randomness. But in the last decade, the flow of bits has become statistically more similar to the patterns found in self-organized systems. For one thing, the global network exhibits self-similarity, also known as a fractal pattern. We see this kind of fractal pattern in the way the jagged outline of tree branches look similar no matter whether we look at them up close or far away. Today messages disperse through the global telecommunications system in the fractal pattern of self-organization." (Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010)

"Language accelerates learning and creation by permitting communication and coordination. A new idea can be spread quickly if someone can explain it and communicate it to others before they have to discover it themselves. But the chief advantage of language is not communication but autogeneration. Language is a trick that allows the mind to question itself; a magic mirror that reveals to the mind what the mind thinks; a handle that turns a mind into a tool." (Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010)

"The evolution of science and technology parallels the evolution of nature. The major technological transitions are also passages from one level of organization to another."(Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010) 

On Mankind: On Machines VI

"The human body is a machine which winds its own springs." (Julien Offray de La Mettrie, "Man a Machine", 1747)

"A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. He that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well being of mankind." (Henry W Beecher, "Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit", 1887) 

"We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions." (Charles F Kettering, "Quotation Marks: Against Technocracy", [New York Times] 1933)

"The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Wind, Sand, and Stars", 1939)

"Science can give us only the tools in the box, these mechanical miracles that it has already given us. But of what use to us are miraculous tools until we have mastered the humane, cultural use of them? We do not want to live in a world where the machine has mastered the man; we want to live in a world where man has mastered the machine." (Frank L Wright, "Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894-1940", 1941)

"Man such as we know him, is a machine." (George I Gurdjieff, "Search of the Miraculous", 1949)

"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human." (Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" , Mind Vol. 59, 1950)

"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do." (Burrhus F Skinner, "Contingencies of Reinforcement", 1969)

"Without mankind machines are nothing." (Edmund Cooper, "The Overman Culture", 1971) 

"We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment." (Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene", 1976)

"We will learn that computers, amazing as they are, still cannot come close to being as effective as human beings. A computer isn't creative on its own because it is programmed to behave in a predictable way. Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience. Computers simply cannot do that." (Masaru Ibuka, The Corporate Board Vol. 13, 1992)

"You can predict exactly what a machine will do if you have sufficient knowledge of it. A machine cannot go beyond the limitations of its design. The man-machine fears death because a machine cannot see beyond its own destruction." (Barry Long, "Knowing Yourself: The True in the False", 1996)

On Life: On Machines II

"Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence." (David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion", 1779)

"The moral universe is so closely linked to the physical universe that it is scarcely likely that they are not one and the same machine." (Denis Diderot, "Eléments de Physiologie", 1875)

"Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism." (Claude Bernard, "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine", 1865) 

“The history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature’s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life’s machinery or of the world around us.” (Santiago Ramón y Cajal, "Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad", 1897)

"The stream of human knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of this realm." (Sir James Jeans, "The Mysterious Universe", 1930)

"Despite all the richness of what men have learned about the world of nature, of matter and of space, of change and of life, we carry with us today an image of the giant machine as a sign of what the objective world is really like." (J Robert Oppenheimer, "Science and the Common Understanding", 1954)

"The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men." (Jorge L Borges, "Dreamtigers", 1960) 

"[…] nature at the quantum level is not a machine that goes its inexorable way. Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening." (John A Wheeler & Wojciech H Zurek, "Quantum Theory and Measurement", 1983)

"We need to abandon the economist's notion of the economy as a machine, with its attendant concept of equilibrium. A more helpful way of thinking about the economy is to imagine it as a living organism." (Paul Ormerod, "The Death of Economics", 1994)

"Our mental model of the way the world works must shift from images of a clockwork, machinelike universe that is fixed and determined, to the model of a universe that is open, dynamic, interconnected, and full of living qualities." (Joseph Jaworski, "Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership", 1996)

On Mathematics: On Machines I

"The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery. […] As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.” (Charles Babbage, “Passages from the Life of a Philosopher”, 1864)

"The most striking characteristic of the written language of algebra and of the higher forms of the calculus is the sharpness of definition, by which we are enabled to reason upon the symbols by the mere laws of verbal logic, discharging our minds entirely of the meaning of the symbols, until we have reached a stage of the process where we desire to interpret our results. The ability to attend to the symbols, and to perform the verbal, visible changes in the position of them permitted by the logical rules of the science, without allowing the mind to be perplexed with the meaning of the symbols until the result is reached which you wish to interpret, is a fundamental part of what is called analytical power. Many students find themselves perplexed by a perpetual attempt to interpret not only the result, but each step of the process. They thus lose much of the benefit of the labor-saving machinery of the calculus and are, indeed, frequently incapacitated for using it." (Thomas Hill, "Uses of Mathesis", Bibliotheca Sacra Vol. 32 (127), 1875)

"Mathematics is an instrument of thought. It is a sort of machine by which the crude and imperfect results of thought are taken and disentangled, and arranged in such a way that the thought can act upon them most readily." (Charles C Everett, "The Science of Thought" II, 1890)

"For, in mathematics or symbolic logic, reason can crank out the answer from the symboled equations -even a calculating machine can often do so - but it cannot alone set up the equations. Imagination resides in the words which define and connect the symbols - subtract them from the most aridly rigorous mathematical treatise and all meaning vanishes." (Ralph W Gerard, "The Biological Basis of Imagination", American Thought, 1947)

"A modern mathematical proof is not very different from a modern machine, or a modern test setup: the simple fundamental principles are hidden and almost invisible under a mass of technical details." (Hermann Weyl, "Unterrichtsblätter für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften", 1932)

"On the basis of what has been proved so far, it remains possible that there may exist (and even be empirically discoverable) a theorem-proving machine which in fact is equivalent to mathematical intuition, but cannot be proved to be so, nor even be proved to yield only correct theorems of finitary number theory." (Kurt Gödel, 1951)

"Mathematics is not, then, merely a bunch of calculations that could be done much faster and better by an electronic machine; nor is it a science developed in ancient times, with nothing added to it since then except a bit of polish here and there." (C Stanley Ogilvy, "Excursions in Mathematics", 1956)

"The structures with which mathematics deals are more like lace, the leaves of trees, and the play of light and shadow on a human face, than they are like buildings and machines, the least of their representatives. The best proofs in mathematics are short and crisp like epigrams, and the longest have swings and rhythms that are like music. The structures of mathematics and the propositions about them are ways for the imagination to travel and the wings, or legs, or vehicles to take you where you want to go." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1975)

"In the initial stages of research, mathematicians do not seem to function like theorem-proving machines. Instead, they use some sort of mathematical intuition to ‘see’ the universe of mathematics and determine by a sort of empirical process what is true. This alone is not enough, of course. Once one has discovered a mathematical truth, one tries to find a proof for it." (Rudy Rucker, "Infinity and the Mind: The science and philosophy of the infinite", 1982)

"Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvelous machine." (Michael F Atiyah, 2004)

"If our machines are better at some things than we are, it makes sense to use machines. Proof techniques may change, but they do that all the time anyway: it’s called ‘research’. The concept of proof does not radically alter if some steps are done by a computer. A proof is a story; a computer-assisted proof is a story that’s too long to be told in full, so you have to settle for the executive summary and a huge automated appendix." (Ian Stewart, "Visions of Infinity", 2013)

🆃Nikola Tesla - Collected Quotes

"It is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature." (Nikola Tesla, "The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla", 1894)

"There is no subject more captivating, more worthy of study, than nature. To understand this great mechanism, to discover the forces which are active, and the laws which govern them, is the highest aim of the intellect of man." (Nikola Tesla, "The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla", 1894)

"Throughout the infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe." (Nikola Tesla, "The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla", 1894)

"To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions." (Nikola Tesla, "Electrical World and Engineer", 1905)

"But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile." (Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions", 1919)

"Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without." (Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions", 1919) 

"The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment; so much, that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture." (Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions", 1919) 

"There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the available theoretical and practical data." (Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions", 1919)

"We are automata entirely controlled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for free will. The movements and other actions we perform are always life preservative and tho seemingly quite independent from one another, we are connected by invisible links." (Nikola Tesla, "My Inventions", 1919)

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter - for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes." (Nikola Tesla, "Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World", Modern Mechanics and Inventions, 1934)

"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." (Nikola Tesla, "Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World", Modern Mechanics and Inventions, 1934)

"Einstein's relativity work is a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king [...] its exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists." (Nikola Tesla, New York Times, 1935)

“Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.” (Nikola Tesla, "A Machine to End War”, 1937)

"Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance." (Nikola Tesla)

"Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields." (Nikola Tesla)

"Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life; Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its destination is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future." (Nikola Tesla)

"Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine." (Nikola Tesla)

"The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries. If timely it is quickly adopted; if not, it is apt to fare like a sprout lured out of the ground by warm sunshine, only to be injured and retarded in its growth by the succeeding frost." (Nikola Tesla)

"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." (Nikola Tesla)

"What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics." (Nikola Tesla)

🅱Mario Bunge - Collected Quotes

"In fact, it is empirically ascertainable that every event is actually produced by a number of factors, or is at least accompanied by numerous other events that are somehow connected with it, so that the singling out involved in the picture of the causal chain is an extreme abstraction. Just as ideal objects cannot be isolated from their proper context, material existents exhibit multiple interconnections; therefore the universe is not a heap of things but a system of interacting systems." (Mario Bunge, "Causality: The place of the casual principles in modern science", 1959)

"Statistical laws are indisputably noncausal, even though some of them may be shown to be partly derivable from laws having a causal component." (Mario Bunge, Causality: The place of the casual principles in modern science, 1959)

"The word 'causality' has, unfortunately enough, no fewer than three principal meanings - a clear symptom of the long and twisted history of the causal problem. The single word 'causality' is in fact used to designate: {a) a category (corresponding to the causal bond); (b) a principle (the general law of causation), and (c) a doctrine, namely, that which holds the universal validity of the causal principle, to the exclusion of other principles of determination." (Mario Bunge, "Causality: The place of the casual principles in modern science", 1959)

"Intuition is the collection of odds and ends where we place all the intellectual mechanisms which we do not know how to analyze or even name with precision, or which we are not interested in analyzing or naming." (Mario Bunge, "Intuition and Science", 1962)

"A theory has a physical meaning iff it contains interpretation assumptions that assign physical correlates to its basic concepts. These correlates (referents) need not be and in general are not perceptible. But they must be scrutable, i.e. they must show up as observable effects even if remotely, i. e. at the end of a long chain accounted for by other theories."(Mario Bunge, "Foundations of Physics", 1967)

"And the best modern physicist is the one who acknowledges that neither classical nor quantum physics are cut and dried, both being full of holes and in need of a vigorous overhauling not only to better cover their own domains but also to join smoothly so as to produce a coherent picture of the various levels of physical reality." (Mario Bunge, "Foundations of Physics", 1967)

"The higher we climb the ladder of epistemic abstraction the less we ourselves appear in our picture of the world and the better we are at explaining our own experiences. On the other hand, by remaining close to the senses we will not transcend superficial, anthropocentric world views. In short, although experience is a test of our theories it is not the stuff our theories are made of or even the referent of physical theories: human experience proper is the subject of nonphysical sciences like psychology. These platitudes had to be stated on account of the widespread belief that in physics only observational predicates matter - a belief inherited from philosophies at variance with science." (Mario Bunge, "Foundations of Physics", 1967)

"A physical theory is assigned a literal and objective interpretation by assigning every one of its referential primitive symbols a physical object - entity, property, relation, or event - rather than a mental picture or a human operation." (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy of Physics", 1973)

"A physical theory must accept some actual data as inputs and must be able to generate from them another set of possible data (the output) in such a way that both input and output match the assumptions of the theory - laws, constraints, etc. This concept of matching involves relevance: thus boundary conditions are relevant only to field-like theories such as hydrodynamics and quantum mechanics. But matching is more than relevance: it is also logical compatibility." (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy of Physics", 1973)

"If 'model' is taken to mean visual representation or analogy with familiar experience, then clearly not every theory involves a model. Thus field theories, whether classical or quantal, are hardly visualisable. And if 'model' is taken to mean mechanism - either in a narrow mechanical sense or in a wide sense including nonmechanical mechanisms such as the meson field mechanism of nuclear forces - then some theories do contain models of this kind while others do not. [...] On the other hand in a third sense every physical theory is a model, namely of the underlying mathematical formalism. Moreover a physical theory is twice a model in the model-theoretic sense: once because every one of its basic signs has a particular interpretation within mathematics, another time because the same sign may have a physical interpretation as well - as is the case with all the referential primitives." (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy of Physics", 1973)

"Whether or not a given conceptual model or representation of a physical system happens to be picturable, is irrelevant to the semantics of the theory to which it eventually becomes attached. Picturability is a fortunate psychological occurrence, not a scientific necessity. Few of the models that pass for visual representations are picturable anyhow. For one thing, the model may be and usually is constituted by imperceptible items such as unextended particles and invisible fields. True, a model can be given a graphic representation - but so can any idea as long as symbolic or conventional diagrams are allowed. Diagrams, whether representational or symbolic, are meaningless unless attached to some body of theory. On the other hand theories are in no need of diagrams save for psychological purposes. Let us then keep theoretical models apart from visual analogues."  (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy of Physics", 1973)

"This distinction is familiar in natural science, where one is not expected to mistake, say, the cardiovascular system for the circulation of the blood or the brain with mental processes. But it is unusual in social studies. [...] Mechanism is to system as motion is to body, combination (or dissociation) to chemical compound, and thinking to brain. [In the systemic view], agency is both constrained and motivated by structure, and in turn the latter is maintained or altered by individual action. In other words, social mechanisms reside neither in persons nor in their environment – they are part of the processes that unfold in or among social systems. […] All mechanisms are system-specific: there is no such thing as a universal or substrate-neutral mechanism." (Mario Bunge, "The Sociology-philosophy Connection", 1999)

"The understanding of a thing begins and ends with some conceptual model of it. The model is the better, the more accurate, and inclusive. But even rough models can be used to guide - or misguide - research." (Bunge A Mario, "Philosophy in Crisis: The Need for Reconstruction", 2001) 

"We all would like to know more and, at the same time, to receive less information. In fact, the problem of a worker in today's knowledge industry is not the scarcity of information but its excess. The same holds for professionals: just think of a physician or an executive, constantly bombarded by information that is at best irrelevant. In order to learn anything we need time. And to make time we must use information filters allowing us to ignore most of the information aimed at us. We must ignore much to learn a little." (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy in Crisis: The Need for Reconstruction", 2001)

"Notice that I use the expression 'systemic approach', not 'systems theory', There are two reasons for this. One is that there are nearly as many systems theories as systems theorists. The other is that the 'systems theory' that became popular in the 1970s (e.g., Laszlo, 1972) was another name for old holism and got discredited because it stressed stasis at the expense of change and claimed to solve all particular problems without empirical research or serious theorizing." (Mario Bunge, "How does it work?: The search for explanatory mechanisms", Philosophy of the Social Sciences Vol.34 (2), 2004)

"The twin concepts of system and mechanism are so central in modern science, whether natural, social, or biosocial, that their use has spawned a whole ontology, which I have called systemism. According to this view, everything in the universe is, was, or will be a system or a component of one." (Mario Bunge, "How does it work?: The search for explanatory mechanisms", Philosophy of the Social Sciences Vol. 34 (2), 2004)

"[...] a single thing may elicit several appearances, various conceptual models of it, or several plans of action for it, depending on the subject’s abilities and interests." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"Although fiction is not fact, paradoxically we need some fictions, particularly mathematical ideas and highly idealized models, to describe, explain, and predict facts.  This is not because the universe is mathematical, but because our brains invent or use refined and law-abiding fictions, not only for intellectual pleasure but also to construct conceptual models of reality." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"At all events, our world pictures may have components of all three kinds: perceptual, conceptual, and praxiological (action-theoretical).  This is because there are three gates to the outer world: perception, conception, and action. However, ordinarily only one or two of them need be opened: combinations of all three, as in building a house according to a blueprint, are the exception.  We may contemplate a landscape without forming either a conceptual model of it or a plan to act upon it.  And we may build a theoretical model of an imperceptible thing, such as an invisible extrasolar planet, on which we cannot act." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"Chance is just as real as causation; both are modes of becoming.  The way to model a random process is to enrich the mathematical theory of probability with a model of a random mechanism. In the sciences, probabilities are never made up or “elicited” by observing the choices people make, or the bets they are willing to place.  The reason is that, in science and technology, interpreted probability exactifies objective chance, not gut feeling or intuition. No randomness, no probability." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"[...] the scientific models of concrete things are symbolic rather than iconic: they are systems of propositions, not pictures. Besides, such models are seldom if ever completely accurate, if only because they involve more or less brutal simplifications, such as pretending that a metallic surface is smooth, a crystal has no impurities, a biopopulation has a single predator, or a market is in equilibrium.  These are all fictions. However, they are stylizations rather than wild fantasies. Hence, introducing and using them to account for real existents does not commit us to fictionism, just as defending the role of experience need not make us empiricists, nor is admitting the role of intuition enough to qualify as intuitionist." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"When in the sciences or techniques one states that a certain problem is unsolvable, a rigorous demonstration of such unsolvability is required. And when a scientist submits an article to publication, the least that its referees demand is that it be intelligible. Why? Because rational beings long for understanding and because only clear statements are susceptible to be put to examination to verify whether they are true or false. In the Humanities it is the same, or it should be, but it is not always so." (Mario Bunge, "Xenius, Platón y Manolito", La Nación, 2008)

"A computer program specifies a sequence of machine states. It is said to be a piece of software because it can be replaced with another program, and inserted into the same piece of hardware, to produce a different information-processing unit. Still, the hardware/software nomenclature is misleading, because software is just as 'hard' or material as hardware. True, unlike an ordinary piece of matter, a piece of software has a semantic content – or rather it elicits one. More precisely, a piece of software, when inserted into a computer, evokes meanings in its user’s brain. Hence, the' content' of a piece of software is very different from the content of a bottle: it can only be poured into a trained brain – and only metaphorically at that. That is, software belongs in the semiotic level of reality, along with bank bills, sentences, and diagrams, neither of which fulfils its function without a brain able to understand its meaning." (Mario Bunge, "Xenius, Platón y Manolito", La Nación, 2008)

"A worldview is a comprehensive conception of all there is, whereas a philosophy is a scholarly discipline divided into special fields, every one of which is usually cultivated independently of the others. [...] Every worldview includes views on values, action, the right, and politics." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"[...] according to the quantum theory, randomness is a basic trait of reality, whereas in classical physics it is a derivative property, though an equally objective one. Note, however, that this conclusion follows only under the realist interpretation of probability as the measure of possibility. If, by contrast, one adopts the subjectivist or Bayesian conception of probability as the measure of subjective uncertainty, then randomness is only in the eye of the beholder." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"Change can be defined as either event or process –in some concrete thing, of course. And a thing having a certain property, or being in a given state, or undergoing a certain change, is called a fact."  (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"Cognition is the acquisition of knowledge, or knowledge in the making. This sounds obvious as long as we do not ask what cognition and knowledge are, for we should admit that we don’t know much about either." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"Entanglement (non-separability) has been interpreted in several non-physical ways, including recourse to telekinesis; it has also been claimed that it refutes realism and confirms holism. In my view, all entanglement does is to confirm the thesis Once a system, always a system. However, this is not an independent postulate, but a consequence of conservation laws." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"From a historical viewpoint, computationalism is a sophisticated version of behaviorism, for it only interpolates the computer program between stimulus and response, and does not regard novel programs as brain creations. [...] The root of computationalism is of course the actual similarity between brains and computers, and correspondingly between natural and artificial intelligence. The two are indeed similar because the artifacts in question have been designed to perform analogs of certain brain functions. And the computationalist program is an example of the strategy of treating similars as identicals." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"[...] information is just as material as energy, though far less ubiquitous because it involves coding, and codes are conventional as well as artificial. [...] In sum, the concept of information is derivative, nor primary; in particular, it depends upon that of matter. Indeed, all information is transmitted by some physical process, just as every bit of energy is the energy of some material entity, and every energy transfer is a physical process that connects two or more physical entities."  (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"Language is a tool of social intercourse to such an extent that it is newly reinvented every time it is absent." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"Metaphysics, or ontology, is the study of the most basic and general problems about the universe and the mind."  (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"It is hard to navigate across one’s environment without having some ideas, however coarse, about it. Indeed, to face any situation we must know whether it is real or imaginary, profane or sacred, sensitive or insensitive to our actions, and so on. This is why even lowly organisms develop, if not worldviews, at least rough sensory maps of their immediate environment – as noted by ethologists from the start. But it is generally assumed that only humans can build conceptual models of their environments. And, except for some philosophers, humans distinguish maps from the territories they represent." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"The traditional worldviews were spiritualist, in that they revolved around imaginary beings: They attempted to understand facts in terms of fictions, and the reputedly lower in terms of the allegedly higher. [...] By contrast, scientific thinking takes the real existence of the external world for granted: it is realist or objectivist. And the sociologies of science, technology and religion attempt to explain in social terms the emergence and fortunes of their subjects. Moreover, the science-oriented worldviews are free from disembodied souls, world spirits, and other fictions: they are also tacitly naturalist or materialist in some sense –without however necessarily denying the existence and power of the mental." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

"[...] we also distinguish knowledge from information, because some pieces of information, such as questions, orders, and absurdities do not constitute knowledge. And also because computers process information but, since they lack minds, they cannot be said to know anything." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)

Information Overload II

"Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur." (Bertram Gross, "The Managing of Organizations", 1964)

"My experience indicates that most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload." (Russell L Ackoff, "Management misinformation systems", 1967)

"One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with." (Marshall McLuhan, "The Best of Ideas", 1967)

"Unless the information overload to which managers are subjected is reduced, any additional information made available by an MIS cannot be expected to be used effectively." (Russell L Ackoff, "Management misinformation systems", 1967)

“[...] in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it." (Herbert A Simon, "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World", 1971)

"Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data." (John Naisbit, "Re-Inventing the Corporation", 1988)

"Traditional ways to deal with information - reading, listening, writing, talking - are painfully slow in comparison to 'viewing the big picture'. Those who survive information overload will be those who search for information with broadband thinking but apply it with a single-minded focus." (Kathryn Alesandrini, "Survive Information Overload: The 7 Best Ways to Manage Your Workload by Seeing the Big Picture", 1992)

"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely." (Edward O Wilson, "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge", 1998)

"We all would like to know more and, at the same time, to receive less information. In fact, the problem of a worker in today's knowledge industry is not the scarcity of information but its excess. The same holds for professionals: just think of a physician or an executive, constantly bombarded by information that is at best irrelevant. In order to learn anything we need time. And to make time we must use information filters allowing us to ignore most of the information aimed at us. We must ignore much to learn a little." (Mario Bunge, "Philosophy in Crisis: The Need for Reconstruction", 2001)

"There is so much information that our ability to focus on any piece of it is interrupted by other information, so that we bathe in information but hardly absorb or analyse it. Data are interrupted by other data before we've thought about the first round, and contemplating three streams of data at once may be a way to think about none of them." (Rebecca Solnit, "The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness", 2014)