“The thought that one unifying idea should continue forever is simply not realistic and therefore not to be hoped for”

— Benoît Mandelbrot

Segment 144
Peoples Archive interview
Context: The thought that one unifying idea should continue forever is simply not realistic and therefore not to be hoped for, but I think that for quite a number of years still, perhaps if I am lucky to the end of my life, because I would hate to see that stop in my lifetime, those questions will become very active and still somewhat separate, as different branches of learning become accustomed to them. I cannot imagine that this idea would vanish, not because I am so proud of what I've been doing all my life, but because this is not an artificial thought coming from nowhere in no time and vanishing again rapidly in no time. It has in every one of its manifestations profound roots in the history of the various sciences and the various manners of human enterprise and those roots will not be broken. The continuity of these thoughts will continue, and if any substitute comes, if any other name comes, which is possible, the ideas will remain.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The thought that one unifying idea should continue forever is simply not realistic and therefore not to be hoped for" by Benoît Mandelbrot?

Benoît Mandelbrot 56

Polish-born, French and American mathematician 1924–2010

Related quotes

“Youthfulness is not determined by age. It is determined by one's life force. One who possesses hope is forever young. One who continually advances is forever beautiful.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

“The child is a realist in every domain of thought, and it is therefore natural that in the moral sphere he should lay more stress on the external, tangible element than on the hidden motive.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

“From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Guilt and Sorrow, st. 41 (1791-1794) Section XL
Context: From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.

“Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Our thoughts almost inevitably revolve around this desire; we simply recoil from entertaining ideas that are unpleasant or painful to us. We imagine we are looking for the truth, or being realistic, when in fact we are holding on to ideas that bring a release from tension and soothe our egos, make us feel superior. This pleasure principle in thinking is the source of all of our mental biases. If you believe that you are somehow immune to any of the following biases, it is simply an example of the pleasure principle in action. Instead, it is best to search and see how they continually operate inside you, as well as learn how to identify such irrationality in others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 1 : Master Your Emotional Self
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

“Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

“The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather — not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i. e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).
It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Preface
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Art remains a sure refuge, the hope of a reason in life from now on, and the consoling thought that little beauty manifests itself in our lives, and that we are continuing the work of Creation... Therefore the work of art has merit, inscribed in the marvelous beauty of flowers, of light, in the proportion of trees and shape of waves, and the perfection of faces; to inscribe our poor and lamentable life of suffering, of hope and of thought.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Quote, 24 March 1895, from Denis' Journal; as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [16]
1890 - 1920

“Know that the figures employed by prophets are of two kinds: first, where every word which occurs in the simile represents a certain idea: and secondly, where the simile, as a whole, represents a general idea, but has a great many points which have no reference whatever to that idea: they are simply required to give to the simile its proper form and order, or better to conceal the idea: the simile is therefore continued as far as necessary, according to its literal sense. Consider this well.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Introduction

“The core idea was to be as realistic as possible and we wanted people to identify with the characters.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Edinburgh International Film Festival, www.edfilmfest.org.uk, http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/2008/06/self-portrait-olly-blackburn, Olly Blackburn, News - Self portrait: Olly Blackburn, 20 June 2008, 23 February 2012]

“The thought that one unifying idea should continue forever is simply not realistic and therefore not to be hoped for”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Benoît Mandelbrot 56

Related quotes

Related topics