Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide
Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist
K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)
Context: A memory should induce a state through which we see current reality as an instance of the remembered event — or equivalently, see the past as an instance of the present.... the system can perform a computation analogous to one from the memorable past, but sensitive to present goals and circumstances.
David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
“A culture is like a lens through which people construct their world.”
Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist
The Circle of Memory, An Autobiography (2016)
Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“People see everything through the lens of their obsessions.”
Francine Prose (1947) American writer
Source: Goldengrove
Tom Cruise (1962) American actor and film producer
Transcript of Tom Cruise on Scientology (January 16, 2008)
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist
Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: Any concepts or words which have been formed in the past through the interplay between the world and ourselves are not really sharply defined with respect to their meaning: that is to say, we do not know exactly how far they will help us in finding our way in the world. We often know that they can be applied to a wide range of inner or outer experience, but we practically never know precisely the limits of their applicability. This is true even of the simplest and most general concepts like "existence" and "space and time". Therefore, it will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
The concepts may, however, be sharply defined with regard to their connections. This is actually the fact when the concepts become part of a system of axioms and definitions which can be expressed consistently by a mathematical scheme. Such a group of connected concepts may be applicable to a wide field of experience and will help us to find our way in this field. But the limits of the applicability will in general not be known, at least not completely.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
Context: In the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh — how are you going to make them think and feel alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that all should think and feel alike?
