Rationality Quotes January 2010

In the wake of such suffering, there is no way to adequately explain the tragedy. Yet the seemingly random nature of the mass deaths has made them even harder for the survivors to understand.

"In a situation like this, it's only natural to want to assign blame," said Dr. Frederick MacDougal of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, who recently lost a third cousin to a degenerative nerve disorder. "But the disturbing thing about this case is that no one factor is at fault. People are dying for such a wide range of reasons--gunshot wounds, black-lung disease, falls down elevator shafts--that we have been unable to isolate any single element as the cause."

"No one simple explanation can encompass the enormous scope of this problem," MacDougal added. "And that's very difficult for most people to process psychologically."

[...]

Meanwhile, as the world continues to grapple with this seemingly unstoppable threat, the deaths--and the sorrow, fear and pain they have wrought--continue.

As Margaret Heller, a volunteer at a clinic in Baltimore put it, "We do everything we can. But for most of the people we try to help, the sad truth is it's only a matter of time."

-- The Onion, Millions and Millions Dead

Related: World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent

"Most haystacks do not even have a needle."

-- Lorenzo

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe. - Abraham Lincoln

This problem affects a question close to Frances Kamm’s work: what she calls the Problem of Distance in Morality (PDM). Kamm says that her intuition consistently finds that moral obligations attach to things that are close to us, but not to thinks that are far away. According to her, if we see a child drowning in a pond and there’s a machine nearby which, for a dollar, will scoop him out, we’re morally obligated to give the machine a dollar. But if the machine is here but the scoop and child are on the other side of the globe, we don’t have to put a dollar in the machine. --Aaron Swartz

This conception of debate as combat is, in fact, probably the main reason why the Social Text editors fell for my parody. Acting not as intellectuals seeking the truth, but as self-appointed generals in the "Science Wars'', they apparently leapt at the chance to get a "real'' scientist on their "side''. Now, ruing their blunder, they must surely feel a kinship with the Trojans.

But the military metaphor is a mistake; the Social Text editors are not my enemies.

- Alan Sokal (hat tip)

"You cannot understand what a person is saying unless you understand who they are arguing with."

-- Don Symons, quoted by Tooby and Cosmides.

If you’ve never broken the bed, you’re not experimenting enough.

-- Miss HT Psych

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

-- Alexander Pope

He must be very ignorant; for he answers every question he is asked.

-- Voltaire

"If I were wrong, then one would have been enough."

Einstein's reported response to the pamphlet "One Hundred Authors Against Einstein."

Mathematical folklore contains a story about how Acta Quandalia published a paper proving that all partially uniform k-quandles had the Cosell property, and then a few months later published another paper proving that no partially uniform k-quandles had the Cosell property. And in fact, goes the story, both theorems were quite true, which put a sudden end to the investigation of partially uniform k-quandles.

-- Mark Jason Dominus

"It is therefore highly illogical to speak of 'verifying' (3.8 [the Bernoulli urn equation]) by performing experiments with the urn; that would be like trying to verify a boy's love for his dog by performing experiments on the dog." - E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

-- attributed to George Carlin

People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway -- and who among us hasn't wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my "new atheist" colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here. After all, it would be absurd to criticize witchcraft as unscientific, as this would ignore the primordial division between mythos and logos. Let me see if I have this straight: Belief in demons, the evil eye, and the medicinal value of a cannibal feast are perversions of the real witchcraft - -which is drenched with meaning, intrinsically wholesome, integral to our humanity, and here to stay. Do I have that right?

Sam Harris's reply to Karen Armstrong

2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5, 5 - 2 =3, and 5 - 3 = 2 are not four facts, but four different ways of looking at one fact. Furthermore, that fact is not a fact of arithmetic, to be taken on faith and memorized like nonsense syllables. It is a fact of nature, which children can discover for themselves, and rediscover or verify for themselves as many times as they need or want to.

The fact is this:

***** <--> *** **

If you have before you a group of objects--coins or stones, for example---that looks like the group on the left, then you can make it into two groups that look like the ones on the right. Or--and this is what the two-way arrow means---if you have two groups that look like the ones on the right, you can make them into a group that looks like the one on the left.

This is not a fact of arithmetic, but a fact of nature. It did not become true only when human beings invented arithmetic. It has nothing to do with human beings. It is true all over the universe. One doesn't have to know any arithmetic to discover or verify it. An infant playing with blocks or a dog pawing at sticks might do that operation, though probably neither of them would notice that he had done it; for them, the difference between ***** and *** ** would be a difference that didn't make any difference. Arithmetic began (and begins) when human beings began to notice and think about this and other numerical facts of nature.

----John Holt, Learning All the Time

[...] Probability theory can tell us how our hypothesis fares relative to the alternatives that we have specified; it does not have the creative imagination to invent new hypotheses for us.

-- E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory

I argue that people are primarily driven by envy as opposed to greed, so they are mindful of their relative, as opposed to absolute, position, and this leads to doing what others are doing as a mechanism of minimizing risk. --Eric Falkenstein

"I once spent a whole day in thought, but it was not so valuable as a moment in study. I once stood on my tiptoes to look out into the distance, but it was not so effective as climbing up to a high place for a broader vista. Climbing to a height and waving your arm does not cause the arm's length to increase, but your wave can be seen farther away. Shouting downwind does not increase the tenseness of the sound, but it is heard more distinctly. A man who borrows a horse and carriage does not improve his feet, but he can extend his travels 1,000 li [~500km] A man who borrows a boat and paddles does not gain any new ability in water, but he can cut across rivers and seas. The gentleman by birth is not different from other men; he is just good at "borrowing" the use of external things."

-- Xunzi, An Exhortation to Learning (勸學) 4, translated by John Knoblock in "Xunzi: A Translation and study of the Complete Works"

"Do not ask permission to understand. Do not wait for the word of authority. Seize reason in your own hand. With your own teeth savor the fruit."

-"The Way of Analysis", Robert S. Strichartz

My two worst business experiences have been with ostentatiously 'spiritual' people. It's not that they're insincere in their beliefs, it's just a lot easier for them to deceive themselves that the selfish things they do have justifications in them somewhere.

-- PeteWarden

Nobody wants to die. They just want the pain to stop.

-- Tetragrammaton

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

-- Carl Sagan

What's wrong with identifying with sports teams

A very funny video comparing identifying with a team to assuming you were there in your favorite movies.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first. —Mark Twain

You're always in a box. Being aware of the box can help you tremendously. It's when you think that you've left the box that's dangerous, because you're still in the box, but now you don't know it.

-- Nazgulnarsil

When someone tells you that anything is possible, tell them to dribble a football.

-- Anon

No effect is ever the effect of a single cause, but only a combination of causes.

-- Herbert Samuel

"The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted."

-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"I'd rather do what I want to do than what would give me the most happiness, even if I knew for a fact exactly what actions would lead to the latter."

Keith Lynch, rec.arts.sf.fandom, hhbk90$hu5$3@reader1.panix.com

"With my eyes I can see you. With your eyes I can see myself."

K. Bradford Brown

There is a perception among the people who are in charge of this monkey that if you just turn the rankings over to a computer, the computer will figure those things out. The reality is that it can't. It is very difficult to objectively measure anything if you don't know what it is you are measuring.

~ Bill James

Matter flows from place to place

And momentarily comes together to be you

Some people find that thought disturbing

I find the reality thrilling

—Richard Dawkins quoted in Our Place in the Cosmos

A theory, however elegant and economical, must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

-- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice

The absence of alternatives clarifies your mind marvelously. —Kissinger

"Psychologists tell us everyone automatically gravitates toward that which is pleasurable and pulls away from that which is painful. For many people, thinking is painful." - Leil Lowndes, How to Talk to Anyone

(Given the context, perhaps a bit of a Dark Arts view.)

 "Could man be drunk forever
 With liquor, love, or fights,
 Lief should I rouse at morning
 And lief lie down of nights.

But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts."

He thought he knew that there was no point in heading any further in that direction, and, as Socrates never tired of pointing out, thinking that you know when you don't is the main cause of philosophical paralysis.

-- Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. —Nietzsche

"My powerful brain has come up with a topic for my paper."

"Great."

"I'll write about the debate over Tyrannosaurs. Were they fearsome predators or disgusting scavengers?"

"Which side will you defend?"

"Oh, I believe they were fearsome predators, definitely."

"How come?"

"They're so much cooler that way."

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (via Pharyngula)

The world is neither fair nor unfair

The idea is just a way for us to understand

But the world is neither fair nor unfair

So one survives

The others die

And you always want a reason why

-- The Cure, "Where The Birds Always Sing"

It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
I will have thousands of globes and all time.

--- Walt Whitman, "Song of Joys"

Mattalast: I learned the truth about this world.

Hamyutz: Yeah? How does that make you feel?

Mattalast: It's just as I thought. The world is pointless and irrational.

Hamyutz: That's great! Your prediction was right on the money.

-The Book of Bantorra, Episode 12

The only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.

-- Daniel Dennett

Interestingly, my memory of the quote was corrupted, until I retrieved it to post here; I thought he'd said "harshest efforts"; perhaps owing to contamination from the quote "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be".

"Wars do not end when they are won, but when those who want to fight to the death find their wish has been granted." - Spengler

Though the earthworm has neither the advantage of claws and teeth nor the strength of muscles and bones, it can eat dust and dirt above ground and drink from the waters of the Yellow Springs below, because its mind is fixed on a constant end. The crab has eight legs and two claws; still if there is no hole made by an eel or snake, it will have no safe place to live, because its mind moves in every direction at once.

For these reasons, if there is no dark obscurity in purpose*, there will be no reputation for brilliance; if there is no hidden secretiveness in the performance of duties, there will be no awe-inspiring majesty in achievements. If you attempt to travel both forks of a road, you will arrive nowhere, and if you attempt to serve two masters, you will please neither.

-- Xunzi, An Exhortation to Learning (勸學) 1.6, translated by John Knoblock in "Xunzi: A Translation and study of the Complete Works"

*Knoblock gives "If there is no ardor and enthusiasm in purpose" as an alternative, personally I would translate it as "if there is no one who deeply wills it" and similarly the next passage as "if there is no one who singlemindedly labors for it" (Knoblock doesn't give any alternative there).

Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther.

-- Thomas Carlyle

Throughout relativity, both in its original, classical form and in the attempts to create a quantum form of it, clocks play a vital role, yet nobody really asks what they are. A distinguished relativist once told me that a clock is "a device that the National Bureau of Standards confirms keeps time to a good accuracy". I felt that, as a theorist, he should be telling them, not the other way around.

-- Julian Barbour, The End of Time

We are stardust. We are billion year old carbon.

- Joni Mitchell

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

-- G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Jonah Lehrer's How we decide

(In the section which discusses psychopaths and notes that the "rational" part of their brains appears to be undamaged: the human brain relies on the circuitry of emotion to form moral decisions, or at any rate that's what's broken in psychopaths.)

This conception of debate as combat is, in fact, probably the main reason why the Social Text editors fell for my parody. Acting not as intellectuals seeking the truth, but as self-appointed generals in the "Science Wars'', they apparently leapt at the chance to get a "real'' scientist on their "side''. Now, ruing their blunder, they must surely feel a kinship with the Trojans.
But the military metaphor is a mistake; the Social Text editors are not my enemies.

• Alan Sokal

If choices are not clearly connected to their benefits, people usually interact in ways that make outcomes unpredictable.

--- Mike Caro

We are stardust. We are billion year old carbon

• Joni Mitchell

We're here to devour each other alive.

Do not ask permission to understand. Do not wait for the word of authority. Seize reason in your own hand. With your own teeth savor the fruit.

-"The Way of Analysis", Robert S. Strichartz

You should not give in to your so-called "needs"! Luxury is the herald of weakness! There aren't even rules for sleeping, you know!

Order of the Stick

All men, at some moment in their lives, feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature -- if that word can be used in reference to man, who has "invented" himself by saying "No" to nature -- consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

-- Octavio Paz, The labyrinth of Solitude

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, in C.S. Lewis "The Silver Chair".

The stability of the family depends on marriage, which becomes a mere protection for society with no other object but the reproducing of that same society. Hence marriage is by nature profoundly conservative. To attack it is to attack the very bases of society.

-- Octavio Paz, The labyrinth of Solitude

Italicized emphases mine. I really liked that phrase.

CHARLIE BROWN: Isn't there anyone---who knows what Christmas is all about?

LINUS: Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

Lights please.

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

---A Charlie Brown Christmas

(edited to include more context)