“Concrete concepts are not necessarily the simplest ones.”

—  Marvin Minsky

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)
Context: Concrete concepts are not necessarily the simplest ones. A novice best remembers "being at" a concert. The amateur remembers more of what it "sounded like." Only the professional remembers the music itself, timbres, tones and textures.

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 "Concrete concepts are not necessarily the simplest ones." by Marvin Minsky?
Marvin Minsky photo
Marvin Minsky 65
American cognitive scientist 1927–2016

Related quotes

Julie Taymor photo

“The concrete world isn't necessarily the most powerful world.”

Julie Taymor (1952) American film and theatre director

Academy of Achievement interview (2006)
Context: The concrete world isn't necessarily the most powerful world. The world of the mind — whether you're watching Matrix or whatever — the world that's inside here has the power to do a lot of good and a lot of damage.

Silvia Federici photo

“All meaning is necessarily teleological in character and historically rooted in the concrete operations of human subjects.”

Silvia Federici (1942) Italian American scholar, teacher, and feminist activist

"Viet Cong Philosophy: Tran Duc Thao" (1970)

David Hilbert photo

“To new concepts correspond, necessarily, new signs.”

David Hilbert Mathematical Problems

Mathematical Problems (1900)
Context: To new concepts correspond, necessarily, new signs. These we choose in such a way that they remind us of the phenomena which were the occasion for the formation of the new concepts.

Thomas Flanagan (political scientist) photo

“I want to illustrate the concept of a solution in mixed strategies with a concrete example using real-world data, but I have not been able to find an appropriate one from Canadian politics.”

Thomas Flanagan (political scientist) (1944) author, academic, and political activist

Source: Game Theory and Canadian Politics (1998), Chapter 2, Game Theory, p. 30.

Hilary Putnam photo

“The real significance of the Russell paradox, from the standpoint of the modal-logic picture, is this: it shows that no concrete structure can be a standard model for the naive conception of the totality of all sets; for any concrete structure has a possible extension that contains more 'sets.'”

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) American philosopher

"Mathematics without foundations"
Source: Philosophical Papers Volume 1: Mathematics, Matter, and Method (1975, 1979)
Context: (If we identify sets with the points that represent them in the various possible concrete structures, we might say: it is not possible for all possible sets to exist in any one world!) Yet set theory does not become impossible. Rather, set theory becomes the study of what must hold in, e.g. any standard model for Zermelo set theory.

“The power struggle within the firm determines which conception of control will dominate and how that conception will be translated into concrete strategies. The winners of this struggle will push the organization into a certain direction and maintain that direction as long as their strategies bring positive results.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 17

“A comparative social science requires a generalized system of concepts which will enable the scientific observer to compare and contrast large bodies of concretely different social phenomena in consistent terms.”

David Aberle (1918–2004) anthropologist

David Aberle, Albert K. Cohen, A. K. Davis, Marion J. Levy Jr. and Francis X. Sutton, (1950). T"he functional prerequisites of a society." Ethics, 60(2), p. 100; cited in: Neil J. Smelser (2013), Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences. p. 189

“A comparative social science requires a generalized system of concepts which will enable the scientific observer to compare and contrast large bodies of concretely different social phenomena in consistent terms.”

Albert K. Cohen (1918–2014) American criminologist

David Aberle, Albert K. Cohen, A. K. Davis, Marion J. Levy Jr. and Francis X. Sutton, (1950). T"he functional prerequisites of a society." Ethics, 60(2), p. 100; cited in: Neil J. Smelser (2013), Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences. p. 189

“A comparative social science requires a generalized system of concepts which will enable the scientific observer to compare and contrast large bodies of concretely different social phenomena in consistent terms.”

Marion J. Levy Jr. (1918–2002) American sociologist

David Aberle, Albert K. Cohen, A. K. Davis, Marion J. Levy Jr. and Francis X. Sutton, (1950). T"he functional prerequisites of a society." Ethics, 60(2), p. 100; cited in: Neil J. Smelser (2013), Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences. p. 189

Heinrich Hertz photo

“If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc.”

Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) German physicist

Introduction, p. 28
Electric Waves: Being Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action with Finite Velocity Through Space (1893)
Context: It is not particularly satisfactory to see equations set forth as direct results of observation and experiment, where we used to get long mathematical deductions as apparent proofs of them. Nevertheless, I believe that we cannot, without deceiving ourselves, extract much more from known facts than is asserted in the papers referred to. If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc.

Related topics