It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions

 --- Martha Graham, quoted in Agnes de Mille,  Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991), cited in Maria Popova, Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity and the Divine Dissatisfaction of Being an Artist, themarginalian

From themarginalian piece

In 1943, De Mille was hired to choreograph the musical Oklahoma!, which became an overnight sensation and ran for a record-setting 2,212 performances. Feeling that critics and the public had long ignored work into which she had poured her heart and soul, De Mille found herself dispirited by the sense that something she considered “only fairly good” was suddenly hailed as a “flamboyant success.” Shortly after the premiere, she met Graham “in a Schrafft’s restaurant over a soda” for a conversation that put into perspective her gnawing grievance and offered what De Mille considered the greatest thing ever said to her. She recounts the exchange:

I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be.

Martha said to me, very quietly: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent.”

“But,” I said, “when I see my work I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied.”

“No artist is pleased.”

“But then there is no satisfaction?”

“No satisfaction whatever at any time,” she cried out passionately. “There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

when evaluating [conspiracy] theories, one should focus on the most plausible versions

 --- Kurtis Hagen, Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style: Do Conspiracy Theories Posit Implausibly Vast and Evil Conspiracies?, Social Epistemology, 2018

Abstract

In the social science literature, conspiracy theories are commonly characterized as theories positing a vast network of evil and preternaturally effective conspirators, and they are often treated, either explicitly or implicitly, as dubious on this basis. This characterization is based on Richard Hofstadter’s famous account of ‘the paranoid style’. However, many significant conspiracy theories do not have any of the relevant qualities. Thus, the social science literature provides a distorted account of the general category ‘conspiracy theory’, conflating it with a subset of that category that encourages unfairly negative evaluations of conspiracy theories. Generally, when evaluating theories, one should focus on the most plausible versions; the merit of a theory is independent of the existence of less plausible versions of it. By ignoring this and glossing over important distinctions, many academics, especially in the social sciences, have misclassified many conspiracy theories and in doing so have contributed to an epistemically unfair depiction of them. Further, even theories that genuinely fit the description of ‘the paranoid style’ cannot be completely dismissed on that basis. All conspiracy theories ought to be judged on the totality of their individual merits.

Agency is a really core property of living things that we almost take for granted, it’s so basic

 --- Kevin Mitchell, geneticist and neuroscientist, quoted in Clare Wilson, Free will: Can neuroscience reveal if your choices are yours to make?, New Scientist, 30 September 2023

Excerpt

And neuroscience isn’t the only branch of biology that has something to say about free will, says Mitchell. “If we want to understand how human beings do things – that is, where causal power [for our actions] comes from – then that question extends back to say: ‘Well, how does any organism do something?'” The answer, says Mitchell, lies in the evolution of biological agency, or the ability to act with intention or purpose, an argument he makes in his new book Free Agents: How evolution gave us free will.

As Mitchell sees it, when the first simple life forms appeared on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago, one of their most interesting essential qualities was that they did stuff. Before that, things happened: grains of sand tumbled around, chemicals reacted and volcanoes spewed out lava. But those were inert physical processes. The first life forms, however, used energy to work against the second law of thermodynamics – the principle that everything tends to become more disorganised over time – and hence stay alive. “Agency is a really core property of living things that we almost take for granted, it’s so basic,” says Mitchell.

Your characters are defined by their stories, and your story consists in nothing other than the actions of its characters

 --- Steven Koch (this guy, I think), quoted by InCinematic (Luke Custer) in When the "parody" surpasses the original (time code 3:11), YouTube,  2024

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away

 --- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Airman's Odyssey per Goodreads

h/t redditor u/Simply-Serendipitous for posting this in the thread Evolution of SpaceX' Raptor rocket engine in r/Damnthatsinteresting, Aug 2024

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison

 --- Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

I think that in general, apart from expert opinion, there is too much respect paid to the opinions of others, both in great matters and in small ones. One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways. Take, for example, the matter of expenditure. Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because they feel that the respect of their neighbours depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travel or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else. There is, of course, no point in deliberately flouting public opinion; this is still to be under its domination, though in a topsy-turvy way. But to be genuinely indifferent to it is both a strength and a source of happiness. And a society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike. 

the basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people

 --- Marilynne Robinson, quoted on Our Favorite Quotes from the President's Conversation with Marilynne Robinson, Obama White House, Oct 2015, cited in Mark Sappenfield, America’s political crisis and the war in Gaza are more intertwined than you might think, CS Monitor, Jul 2024

Excerpt from President Obama & Marilynne Robinson: A Conversation in Iowa, The New York Review of Books, Nov 2015 (WaybackMachine)

The President: ... Why did you decide to write this book of essays? And why was fear an important topic, and how does it connect to some of the other work that you’ve been doing?

Robinson: Well, the essays are actually lectures. I give lectures at a fair rate, and then when I’ve given enough of them to make a book, I make a book.

The President: So you just kind of mash them all together?

Robinson: I do. That’s what I do. But it rationalizes my lecturing, too. But fear was very much—is on my mind, because I think that the basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people.

You have to assume that basically people want to do the right thing. I think that you can look around society and see that basically people do the right thing. But when people begin to make these conspiracy theories and so on, that make it seem as if what is apparently good is in fact sinister, they never accept the argument that is made for a position that they don’t agree with—you know?

The myth, a set of mental representations that integrate a particular worldview

--- Sergio Rodríguez-Blanco, "Introduction, Photography and Time Eternal," in Phyllis Galembo: Mexico Masks Rituals, Radius Books/D.A.P.; Bilingual edition (2019 : 11) 

Excerpt

The myth, a set of mental representations that integrate a particular worldview, inhabits the space of the imaginary. Material products of culture such as masks, costumes, musical instruments, food, beverages, or words pronounced as mantras, are a few of the ritualistic elements which go inextricably hand in hand with corporeal expression—dance, gesture, movement— actions without which the rite couldn't be carried out. According to Mircea Eliade, in his book The Sacred and The Profane (Lo sagrado y lo profano), and to Claude Lévi-Strauss, the rite is myth in action, and it constitutes the origin of music, poetry, dance, theatre, and painting. In other words, the rite places the myth on the scene; it materializes what the myth imagines. 

Biographical subjects are like snakes; they are best handled dead

 --- Joseph Epstein, quoted by Jonathan Fig, Biographers Owe Their Readers the Full Truth, WSJ, July 12, 2024

Excerpt

Biographical subjects are like snakes; they are best handled dead.

This cautionary advice comes from the essayist Joseph Epstein, my friend and former professor. I thought of his words this week as I read the news concerning the late Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro, whose daughter published an essay saying that she had been sexually assaulted beginning at the age of nine by her stepfather and that her mother, upon learning of the abuse, chose to stay with her husband.

There is no such thing as society

 --- Margaret Thatcher, recorded by the New Statesman, "Margaret Thatcher in quotes," 8 april 2013, archived by the WayBackMachine

New Statesman:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first… There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization

 --- Yuval Harari, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, You Can Have the Blue Pill or the Red Pill, and We’re Out of Blue Pills, New York Times, March 2023

Excerpt

In the beginning was the word. Language is the operating system of human culture. From language emerges myth and law, gods and money, art and science, friendships and nations and computer code. A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization. By gaining mastery of language, A.I. is seizing the master key to civilization, from bank vaults to holy sepulchers.

...

The time to reckon with A.I. is before our politics, our economy and our daily life become dependent on it. Democracy is a conversation, conversation relies on language, and when language itself is hacked, the conversation breaks down, and democracy becomes untenable. If we wait for the chaos to ensue, it will be too late to remedy it. 

But what is "A.I."? What is the "it" that can hack and manipulate? The language presumes agency, and it's not clear that "A.I." has agency. If it's a dataset and algorithm, it doesn't have a clear boundary, and depends on a corporation to provide infrastructure to run on. Seems like an anthropomorphic fallacy to me.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has

 --- attrib. to Margaret Mead. See QuoteInvestigator discussion, which concludes: "Donald Keys appears to be the crucial initial propagator of the quotation although it remains unclear how he learned about the statement. The precise phrasing and the ascription to Margaret Mead hinge on his veracity. There is no substantive support for competing ascriptions, and QI would tentatively assign the saying to Mead."

the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment

--- Ben Franklin, speech to the Federal Convention, 17 Sept. 1787 (The Founders' Constitution, Volume 4, Article 7, Document 3)

Excerpt

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.

Via A.J. Jacobs, in conversation with Russ Roberts, EconTalk podcast 6 May 2024, Living with the Constitution (with A.J. Jacobs)

literature as a playground on which to confront ambiguity and paradox

--- Anja Lange, undated CU Boulder profile page (accessed 8 Jun 2024)

Excerpt

Anja joined the Herbst Program in the fall of 2001.  Since then, she has been teaching literature not only for its own merit but also as a vehicle for gaining insight into engineering and other fields.  The problems in professional engineering will never be as clear-cut as those in the classroom, so Anja offers her engineering students literature as a playground on which to confront ambiguity and paradox.  It might seem counter-intuitive, but Plato, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Melville, and T.S. Eliot can help Herbst students become better engineers by helping them engage in self-learning and interactive problem-solving.  Anja believes that the synergy found in an interdisciplinary study helps one fully understand our civic responsibilities; these responsibilities are even greater for the engineer.

The worst thing to happen to climate scientists on Twitter was climate scientists on Twitter

--- Matthew Burgess, quoted in Stephanie Hanes, "A climate scientist questioned his findings. It didn’t go well.", CS Monitor, Jun 2024

Excerpt

Matthew Burgess, a self-proclaimed “moderate Canadian” and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, says the politics he noticed within academia prompted him to study polarization around climate change – and to look for common ground.

“It felt like the conversations in the hallways were about how we need to change all of society over decades. But the only ones who were trusted or who could do anything about it were the left-most third of the Democratic Party,” he says. “That’s a dumb theory of change.”

He decided to do outreach on college campuses about polarized climate discussions. He says he spoke with conservatives and progressives and everyone in between, finding eager audiences among each and a willingness to be open – that is, to trust.

“Scientists sometimes overcomplicate the problem of being trusted,” he says. “The best way of gaining trust is to be trustworthy.”

That means acknowledging the downsides of climate action, he says. It means acknowledging where scientific expertise ends and personal, subjective opinion begins. It means acknowledging the big, ethical questions that come along with it. For instance, is it fair to prevent lower-income countries from developing the same fossil fuel-based energy systems that helped make the U.S. and Europe rich?

It also means keeping partisanship and incivility off social media. “The worst thing to happen to climate scientists on Twitter was climate scientists on Twitter,” he says.

And it means better explaining how science actually works.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "Thank You," that would suffice.

 --- attrib to Meister Eckhardt; disputed, see Wikiquote

Nothing of what I do makes sense for a cheap food system, but ... as food security, then I start to make sense

--- Farmer Heinz Thomet, quoted in Sophie Hill, "In Maryland, just two farmers grow rice. Here’s why." CS Monitor, Oct 2023

A nice example of the trade-off between efficiency and resilience.

Excerpt

“Nothing of what I do makes sense for a cheap food system, but if you recognize a decentralized food system as food security, then I start to make sense,” says Mr. Thomet. “If you look at diversified farms as part of the resilience towards a global weather pattern change, then I start to make change.”

the law less as strategic or rule-based and more as a muddled, dangerous beast

--- Vajra Chandraskera, The Saint of Bright Doors, p. 165 

Excerpt

[Caduv:] "Keep the boundaries of allowed speech vague, and you can claim that your enemies have crossed them whenever you need to suppress them. The Ministry of Information and Mass Media is nothing more than a blacklist-in-waiting."

Fetter nods tiredly. It's the same attitude Mother-of-Glory has to the law. Fetter himself thinks of the law less as strategic or rule-based and more as a muddled, dangerous beast. A rabid leopard, like Caduv's character in the play. None of the others understand that the law might do anything, at any time, to anyone, and justify itself any way it likes—it is feral, like the invisible laws and powers of the world of which it is a pale imitation. It's because none of them can see the devils, he thinks.

Reading makes a full man; Conference a ready man; and Writing an exact man

--- Francis Bacon, "Of Studies"

Excerpt

And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

For discussion, see enotes, 'What does Francis Bacon mean by "writing makes an exact man" in his essay "Of Studies"?' This Samuel Johnson quote cited there by William Delaney resonated with me:

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Tech is ... full of people lying to themselves.

 --- Christopher Mims, in What I Got Wrong in a Decade of Predicting the Future of Tech, (unlocked article) WSJ, May 16, 2024 

Excerpt

Kara Swisher, whose Boomtown column at the Journal was in many ways the precursor of this one, once said on a podcast that when she interviews a person in tech who is hyping their company or product, rather than asking herself how they’re lying to her, she asks “how are they lying to themselves?”

Tech is, to put it bluntly, full of people lying to themselves. As countless cult leaders, multilevel marketing recruits, and CrossFit coaches know, one powerful way to convince people that following you will change their life is to first convince yourself.

It’s usually not malicious. Given the rate at which startups fail, to be a founder of one is to engage in a level of magical thinking that in another age would qualify a person for the sanatorium. 

‘Art’ stands in symbolically for the parts of cognition that do not seem machine-like

--- Ben Davis, in Art in the After-Culture, quoted by Shanti Escalante-De Mattei in Stephen Thaler’s Quest to Get His  ‘Autonomous’ AI Legally Recognized Could Upend Copyright Law Forever, Art in America, Jan 8, 2024

Excerpt

In his 2022 book, Art in the After-Culture, art critic Ben Davis writes, “‘Art’ stands in symbolically for the parts of cognition that do not seem machine-like.” Accordingly, the loose definition of art has changed to keep pace with the advancement of machines. Craft is not really art because machines can make tables and sweaters. The advent of cameras, which made rendering a realistic image as simple as pressing a shutter button, initiated Impressionism, Cubism, and the long arc of conceptual art. In contemporary art, the institutions, galleries, and other gatekeepers have increasingly clustered around the figure of the artist and the individual life story, and run away from the material object, which can always be replicated anyway. We are left clutching that indefinable spark as some final differentiator between humans and machines.

this is not my new forever

--- via Paul S on Substack, in Trying to see a bigger picture, 4 May 2024

Excerpt

However, I have been told multiple times that recovery is not a straight-line process, and that I must not let a few bad days distract from a long-term upward trend. Or as one of my oldest friends said to me last summer when he visited me from Houston, a good mantra to repeat at times like these is “this is not my new forever”. And he learned that from his wife. And she learned it from NASA. Because that's what she's taught in astronaut training. Yeah, seriously. Anyway, the point being: if that's what they teach the best people in the world, someone of her calibre, then it is clearly good enough for me. In which spirit, I will try to concentrate here on positives, rather than wallowing in self-pity.

Weaknesses, limits and costs are more interesting than powers

--- Brandon Sanderson, #2 of Sanderson's Laws of Magic (Wikipedia).

From Wikipedia (references removed):

Sanderson's three laws of magic are creative writing guidelines that can be used to create magic systems for fantasy stories:

1. An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
2. Weaknesses, limits and costs are more interesting than powers.
3. The author should expand on what is already a part of the magic system before something entirely new is added, as this may otherwise entirely change how the magic system fits into the fictional world.

Additionally, there is a zeroth law:

0. Always err on the side of what's awesome.

Politeness ... is a technique. It’s etiquette. ... Civility, by contrast, is a disposition of the heart, a way of seeing others as our moral equals

--- Alexandra Hudson, in CS Monitor interview about her book, “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles To Heal Society and Ourselves,” Oct 2023

Excerpt

Clarity came when I understood there was a difference between civility and politeness. That politeness, I argue in my book, is a technique. It’s etiquette. Manners is the superficial stuff. Civility, by contrast, is a disposition of the heart, a way of seeing others as our moral equals and worthy of respect because of our shared dignity as human beings. 

The Latin root of politeness is polire, which means to smooth or to polish. And that’s what politeness does. It polishes over differences. ... Whereas civility comes from the Latin word civitas, which means city and citizenship. And that’s what civility is. It’s the habits and duties of citizenship that sometimes requires telling hard truths, sometimes requires protest and civil disobedience.  

not all of it can matter equally to you

 --- Meg Shields, in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ And How to Survive Being Very Online, July 2022, pointing to (referencing?) a video essay by Thomas Flight

Excerpt

The internet is a place of endless curiosity and community. But it’s also overwhelming to be bombarded with a constant stream of information, political causes, and entertainment. The internet is silly, stupid, anarchic, tragic, and meaningful. And not all of it can matter equally to you. Our little monkey brains weren’t built for that. And part of what Daniels’ film is saying, as the video essay below underlines, is that determining what does and doesn’t matter to you in an attention economy is a life-saving step for surviving in the world post-Internet.

If you don't want to write propaganda, you write essays

--- psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips, in conversation with Hermione Lee, On Giving Up, The LRB Podcast, Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at time code 38:04

If ChatGPT can do it, and if the purpose is learning, it’s not worth doing

 --- John Warner, in On AI and ‘Meaningful’ Feedback, Inside Higher Ed, Feb 2024

... that great LEVIATHAN ... that Mortall God, to which wee owe ... our peace and defence

--- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) (on gutenberg.org), h/t David Runciman, The Handover (2023:34) for the reference.

Note the group agency implied by "or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will."

Excerpt

The Generation Of A Common-wealth

The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Forraigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the fruites of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or Assembly of men, to beare their Person; and every one to owne, and acknowledge himselfe to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concerne the Common Peace and Safetie; and therein to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their Judgements, to his Judgment. This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, “I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner.” This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. For by this Authoritie, given him by every particular man in the Common-Wealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is inabled to forme the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutuall ayd against their enemies abroad.

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable

--- painter Robert Henri, quoted passim, couldn't find source

 “The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”

we control nothing but we influence everything

--- Brian Klaas, political scientist, in conversation with Russ Roberts on the Econtalk podcast, episode If Life Is Random, Is It Meaningless? (with Brian Klaas), Jan 22, 2024, about his book Fluke.

From the transcript:

But it's also something where it's derived from a sense, for me at least, that, if the world is intertwined in this way and if our lives can be swayed by forces seen and unseen, sometimes random, sometimes small, we have a little bit less control than we think we do. Right? And, I think we're sold this world where, like, you are in control. Right? So, the self-help industry is basically an industry that tells you, 'It's your fault you're not happy, because here's the recipe to being happy and wealthy and so on.' And, the world just doesn't work that way.

And I think it lets us off the hook a little bit. I think that's the other aspect of this that I find helpful, is--I repeatedly use this quote, and it's sort of this idea that we control nothing but we influence everything. And, when you start to think about it that way, combined with the aspects of what you just read, I think it lets humanity sort of be a little bit messy and be a little bit imperfect. And it's okay.

[Better] to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a résumé, a commentary.

--- Jose Luis Borges, Prologue to The Garden of Forking Paths, in Ficciones, edited and with an introduction by Anthony Kerrigan, Grove Press (New York), (1941, 1962:15)

The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a résumé, a commentary.

 

What is presented as a list of unimpeachable virtues and laudable goals is in practice a web of contradictions

 --- A.O. Scott, in The Word That Undid Claudine Gay, New York Times, Jan 3, 2024

Excerpt

“These last weeks,” Dr. Gay writes, “have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth.” This sentence echoes the Harvard Corporation’s gusty roster of commitments, improving the syntax and the prose rhythm. Those infinitives stack up nicely. It sounds like a lot of work, but how can anyone be against any of it?

The real question, though, is how one institution can be for all of it. Is this work the university is really equipped to do? Combating bias may involve constraining open inquiry; free expression is not always respectful or compassionate. The pursuit of truth may outrun everything else. This cascade of noble imperatives can be read descriptively, as a diagnosis of the causes of campus turmoil. What is presented as a list of unimpeachable virtues and laudable goals is in practice a web of contradictions.

Dr. Claudine Gay at a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in Harvard Yard in December 2023.
Adam Glanzman for The New York Times

organizations [...] produce designs which are copies of [their] communication structures (Conway's Law)

--- Programmer Melvin Conway (1968), in How do Committees Invent?, Datamation 14 (5): 28–31 [pdf] (h/t John Helm, see also Wikipedia, Conway's law)

Conclusion of the Datamation article

The basic thesis of this article is that organizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations. We have seen that this fact has important implications for the management of system design. Primarily, we have found a criterion for the structuring of design organizations: a design effort should be organized according to the need for communication.

This criterion creates problems because the need to communicate at any time depends on the system concept in effect at that time. Because the design which occurs first is almost never the best possible, the prevailing system concept may need to change. Therefore, flexibility of organization is important to effective design.

Ways must be found to reward design managers for keeping their organizations lean and flexible. There is need for a philosophy of system design management which is not based on the assumption that adding manpower simply adds to productivity. The development of such a philosophy promises to unearth basic questions about value of resources and techniques of communication which will need to be answered before our system-building technology . can proceed with confidence.

Conway's Law is sometimes invoked in the slogan, “Don’t ship the org chart” (see, e.g., Marcelo Calbucci post on LinkedIn).

 

Metaphysics is the art of bamboozling people methodically

 --- Physiologist A. V. Hill, quoted by his grandson Nicholas Humphrey, "How did consciousness evolve?," Royal Institution lecture, Sep 21, 2023, at 1:13

From the video

His field was biophysics. Mine is psychophysics, verging on metaphysics. Grandpa Hill was a down to earth a scientist as they come. He once gave me his definition of metaphysics. "Metaphysics," he said, "is the art of bamboozling people methodically."

Judging by the Wikipedia entry, Hill was amazing:

• He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge as third wrangler in the mathematics tripos.
• In his very first publication (1909), while still an undergraduate, he derived what became known as the Languir equation (1918).
• He was a crack shot.
• During a home leave in WW I in 1915, he proposed a two-mirror method to determine planes' heights and then assembled a team to calculate the required data tables.
• He shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• In 1935 he served with Patrick Blackett and Sir Henry Tizard on the committee that gave birth to radar. 

 

We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us

--- Winston Churchill, speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons, October 1943, Hansard, HC Deb 28, volume 393, cc403-73 (accessed hansard.millbanksystems.com on December 7, 2023), cited by QuoteInvestigator, Quote Origin: We Shape Our Tools, and Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us, June 26, 2016 (accessed on December 7, 2023)

From Hansard

I beg to move, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon plans for the rebuilding of the House of Commons and upon such alterations as may be considered desirable while preserving all its essential features." On the night of 10th May, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again, and how, and when. We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. Having dwelt and served for more than 40 years in the late Chamber, and having derived fiery great pleasure and advantage therefrom, I, naturally, would like to see it restored in all essentials to its old form, convenience and dignity.

QuoteInvestigator goes on to describe related quotes:

• Henry David Thoreau, "But lo! men have become the tools of their tools ."
• John M. Culkin in “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan”, "We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us."
• William J. Mitchell, "Now we make our networks and our networks make us."

the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become

--- Bruno Latour, in Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies (1999: 304), cited in Blackboxing, Wikipedia, accessed 7 December 2023

Wikipedia cite:

[Blackboxing is] the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become.

Desire is the presence of absence

--- Alexandre Kojève, quoted by Samantha Rose Hill in "The scar of identity," Aeon, 21 March 2023

From Hill's piece:

Instead of Hegel’s roundabout of self-consciousness that exists in itself and for itself but always and only in relation to another, Kojève gives us: self-consciousness is the I that desires, and desire implies and presupposes a self-consciousness. Thinking about the relation between the finite mind and Absolute knowledge is opaque, but desire is human. People know what it feels like to desire, to want, to crave to be seen, to feel understood. Desire is the hunger one feels to fill the absence inside themselves. Or, as Kojève put it: ‘Desire is the presence of absence.’

 

The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease

Sēngcàn (Seng-ts'an), quoted by Jonathan Haidt in The moral roots of liberals and conservatives, TED2008, 15:28 

From Haidt's talk

If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be 'for' or 'against.' The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sengcan.jpg

travellers do not produce railways, but, conversely, railways produce travellers

 --- Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (1946, 1988), in a section titled "Demand, Medium, Trade" (h/t Matt Nesselrodt). From Gutenberg.org: 

In the earliest period of European railway construction some "practical" people were of the opinion that it was foolish to build certain lines "because there were not even sufficient passengers to fill the mail-coaches." They did not realize the truth—which now seems obvious to us—that travellers do not produce railways, but, conversely, railways produce travellers, the latent demand, of course, is taken for granted.

“Try my chat app” becomes the new “check out my podcast”

 Jeff Homes tweet, https://twitter.com/Jeff_Holmes/status/1721720137286386056 (h/t Paul Diduch)

It’s not what you say; it’s what people hear that matters

Frank Luntz, Interview, PBS, 15 December 2003, quoted by Galen Strawson, "Blockers and laughter: panpsychism, archepsychism, pantachepsychism" 2024 (draft, academia.edu)

Quote of Luntz from the Strawson essay:

 I've got a certain rule that I always teach my staff: It's not what you say; it's what people hear that matters. I may respond to you effectively, but if you edit it in such a way that they only hear the negativity of what I do, then that's all they're going to know. And so they're going to conclude that my profession isn't an honorable profession. And that's why how I say it has as much of an impact on what people think of me as what I say.

[Regarding consistency,] there's a simple rule: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you're absolutely sick of saying it is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time. And it is so hard, but you've just got to keep repeating, because we hear so many different things -- the noises from outside, the sounds, all the things that are coming into our head, the 200 cable channels and the satellite versus cable, and what we hear from our friends. We as Americans and as humans have very selective hearing and very selective memory. We only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.

The Israeli psyche resembles an archaeological site of layers of unresolved traumas, ordinary life interrupted by history

--- Yossi Klein Halevi, in For Israel, a "War Unlike Any Other," WSJ Saturday Essay, Nov 3, 2023

First line in the piece: 

The Israeli psyche resembles an archaeological site of layers of unresolved traumas, ordinary life interrupted by history. Still, none of the previous wars and terror assaults and missile barrages that I’ve lived through in my four decades as an Israeli has quite prepared me for this moment of rage, dread, uncertainty, resolve.

Some highly successful people are nearly delusional in their beliefs that they can achieve lofty goals where others can’t

--- Jon Levy, behavioral scientist, quoted by Callum Borchers in Why People Take No-Win Jobs Like Kevin McCarthy’s, WSJ, 4 Oct 2023

Excerpt

Some highly successful people are nearly delusional in their beliefs that they can achieve lofty goals where others can’t, says Jon Levy, a behavioral scientist who consults with organizations on building culture. It’s a mindset that can propel them beyond most of the rest of the population. You could call it the Elon Musk effect. If they considered their chances in rational terms, Levy says, they would probably give up.

actions and deeds are accompanied by reflections upon them, in the form of histories, myths, and song

--- John von Heyking, in Churchill on Friendship as Statecraft, The Montréal Review, May 2021.

In context

As statesman, Churchill understood the role of friendship for his craft. But his statecraft was more than actions and deeds. Recall he won the Nobel Prize not for peace but for literature. At Harrow he won a prize for reciting Macaulay’s “Lays of Ancient Rome” from memory (to show that his poor performance in Greek and Latin meant he was not, in his words, a complete “dunce”) and in My Early Life he recommends a Greek-style paideia of “poetry, songs, dancing, drill and gymnastics” for the young. His speeches, correspondence, and writings attest to his view that actions and deeds are accompanied by reflections upon them, in the form of histories, myths, and song. After the war is won, the peace must be won with songs and stories that win over hearts and minds. John F. Kennedy said “he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.” As I previously mentioned, Churchill chose the hymns and even arranged the deck chairs for the worship service he held with Roosevelt on board the H.M.S. Prince of Wales at Placentia Bay. He composed his speeches in the same format as Biblical psalms. One reviewer of a collection of his speeches proclaimed, “He not only makes laws for his people but writes their songs as well, in the sense that his speeches are battle cries, dirges for the fallen and hymns of victory.” Indeed, his Cabinet colleagues complained of his voluminous correspondence and memos that he was fighting the war simply to write the history.

history is made up of truths that eventually become lies, while mythology is made up of lies that eventually become truths

 --- Jean Cocteau, 1962, film "Jean Cocteau s'addresse a l'an 2000", at time code 7:14, h/t Matt Nesselrodt

“I have always preferred mythology to history because history is made up of truths that eventually become lies, while mythology is made up of lies that eventually become truths.”

modern western man ... no longer believes that he can know what is good and bad

 --- Leo Strauss, "The Three Waves of Modernity," Political Philosophy: Six Essays, ed. Hilail Gildin, Pegasus-Bobbs-Merrill, 1975, p. 81-82

Excerpt from https://contemporarythinkers.org/leo-strauss/essay/the-three-waves-of-modernity/:

The crisis of modernity reveals itself in the fact, or consists in the fact, that modern western man no longer knows what he wants–that he no longer believes that he can know what is good and bad, what is right and wrong.  Until a few generations ago, it was generally taken for granted that man can know what is right and wrong, what is the just or the good or the best order of society–in a word that political philosophy is possible and necessary.  In our time this faith has lost its power.  According to the pre-dominant view, political philosophy is impossible: it was a dream, perhaps a noble dream, but at any rate a dream.  While there is broad agreement on this point, opinions differ as to why political philosophy was based on a fundamental error.  According to a very widespread view, all knowledge which deserves the name is scientific knowledge; but scientific knowledge cannot validate value judgments; it is limited to factual judgments; yet political philosophy presupposes that value judgments can be rationally validated.  According to a less widespread but more sophisticated view, the predominant separation of facts from values is not tenable.: the categories of theoretical understanding imply, somehow, principles of evaluation; but those principles of evaluation together with the categories of understanding are historically variable; they change from epoch to epoch; hence it is impossible to answer the question of right and wrong or of the best social order in a universally valid manner, in a manner valid for all historical epochs, as political philosophy requires.

Google Books

If you’re less than five minutes early, you’re late

 --- Saying in the military, quoted by Bear Grylls in ‘The Best Advice a Boss Ever Gave Me’, WSJ Sep 2023

From the article:

“When I first joined the military, a sergeant major told me: ‘If you’re less than five minutes early, you’re late.’ I’ve never forgotten those words and have always tried to make it a mantra when filming or working. I really notice it too in others, on expeditions for example. It speaks to diligence and dedication.”

Bear Grylls is the host of ‘Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge,’ on National Geographic

The saying reminds me of a "twenty before twenty" an ex-military person told me about: The colonel says that everyone should muster at 0800, the captain makes it 0740, the sergeant major makes it 0720, and the corporal makes it 0700.

There's a StackExchange thread on the origin. Variations include "Early is on time; on time is late" and "Five minutes early is on time."

You can’t put [the universe] in a box on a table and run controlled experiments on it

--- physicists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser in The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel, NY Times guest essay, 2 Sep 2023, via SN First Up, 6 Sep 2023

Cosmology is not like other sciences. It’s not like studying mice in a maze or watching chemicals boil in a beaker in a lab. The universe is everything there is; there’s only one and we can’t look at it from the outside. You can’t put it in a box on a table and run controlled experiments on it. Because it is all-encompassing, cosmology forces scientists to tackle questions about the very environment in which science operates: the nature of time, the nature of space, the nature of lawlike regularity, the role of the observers doing the observations.

The story behind the essay title: "But one of the Webb’s first major findings was exciting in an uncomfortable sense: It discovered the existence of fully formed galaxies far earlier than should have been possible according to the so-called standard model of cosmology." 

There are no solutions, only trade-offs

 --- Economist Thomas Sowell, quoted passim e.g. by Anna Reynolds at InspireVirtue.com 

we absolutely are going to turn our systems into agents with goals

 --- Zvi Mowshowitz  on the EconTalk podcast, Aug 7, 2023

In context, from the transcript

What we do know is that humans love achieving goals, and that when you give an AI system goals, it helps you achieve your goals. Right? At least on the margin, at least to starting out, people think this. And so, we see Baby GPT and Auto GPT and all these other systems that turns out for 100 lines of code. You can create the scaffolding around GPT-4 that makes an attempt to act like it has goals. Right? To take actions as if it had goals and to act as a goal-motivated system.

And, it's not great because the underlying technologies aren't there, and we haven't gone through the iterations of building the right scaffolding, and we don't know a lot of the tricks, and it's still very, very early days.

But, we absolutely are going to turn our systems into agents with goals that are trying to achieve goals, that then create sub-goals, that then plan but then ask themselves, 'What do we need to do in order to accomplish this thing?' And, that will include like, 'Oh, I don't have this information. I need to go get this information.' 'I don't have this capability. I don't have access to this tool. I need to get this tool.' And, it's a very small leap from there to, 'I'm going to need more money.' Right? Or something like that. And from there, the sky's the limit. So, we can rule out, through experimentation in a way that we couldn't two years ago--right?--this particular theory of Marc's that the systems in the future won't have goals in a meaningful sense unless we take action to stop it.

Host Russ Roberts then went on to talk about aspiration which to me is a subset of having goals - it's the felt experience of having goals. Not surprisingly, he then connected goals to sentience and consciousness.

And, I think part of the reason that the skeptics--the optimists--are more optimistic. And, part of the reason I think we are in some sense just telling different narratives and some are more convincing than others, and it's mainly stories, is that we don't have any vivid examples today of my vacuum cleaner wanting to be a driverless car--an example I've used before. It doesn't aspire. Now, we might see some aspiration or at least perceived aspiration in ChatGPT at some point, but I think part of the problem getting people convinced about its dangers is that that leap--a sentience leap, the consciousness leap, which is where goals come in--doesn't seem credible. At least today. Maybe it will be, and I think that's where you and others who are worried about AI need to help me and others who are less worried to see.