Quotes about electronics page 3
Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies
"Muller Bros. Moving & Storage", pp. 200–201
Eight Little Piggies (1993)
Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist
Source: The Brain As A Computer (1962), p.2
Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist
Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 140
Donald A. Norman book The Design of Everyday Things
Introduction to the 2002 Edition, p. x.
The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002)
Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)
Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor
Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.
Richard Menta American journalist
Source Sony PSP As Personal Media Player - Review http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/psp_review.html - 5/14/2005 <br class="br">Quotes from the MP3 Newswire
William Irwin Thompson (1938) American writer
Thompson (1991) Fast Foreword, from The American Replacement of Nature.
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer
"JG Ballard: Theatre of Cruelty" interview by Jean-Paul Coillard in Disturb ezine (1998)
Context: For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope that the human talent for self-destruction can be successfully controlled, or at least channelled into productive forms, but I doubt it. I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game.
Clifford D. Simak book A Choice of Gods
A Choice of Gods (1972)
Context: I have become a student of the sky and know all the clouds there are and have firmly fixed in mind the various hues of blue that the sky can show — the washed-out, almost invisible blue of a hot, summer noon; the soft robin's egg, sometimes almost greenish blue of a late springtime evening, the darker, almost violet blue of fall. I have become a connoisseur of the coloring that the leaves take on in autumn and I know all the voices and the moods of the woods and river valley. I have, in a measure, entered into communion with nature, and in this wise have followed in the footsteps of Red Cloud and his people, although I am sure that their understanding and their emotions are more fine-tuned than mine are. I have seen, however, the roll of seasons, the birth and death of leaves, the glitter of the stars on more nights than I can number and from all this as from nothing else I have gained a sense of a purpose and an orderliness which it does not seem to me can have stemmed from accident alone.
It seems to me, thinking of it, that there must be some universal plan which set in motion the orbiting of the electrons about the nucleus and the slower, more majestic orbit of the galaxies about one another to the very edge of space. There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith — and, indeed, our hope — the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid...
Ch 24
Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker
Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 84-85
Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist
R. Frisch (1964), Theory of Production, p. v: Lead paragraph of preface
1940-60s
Context: In this feverish world of ours, where one wants the economic analyses to produce easily understandable results quickly and at the least possible cost, some of us have fallen into the habit of assuming for simplicity that the hundreds sometimes thousands of variables that enter into the analyses are linked together by very simple relationships. Frequently we even go so far as to assume linear relationships. Only in this way have we been able to feed our problems into the electronic computers and get mechanical answers quickly and at low cost.
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist
Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: The words "position" and "velocity" of an electron... seemed perfectly well defined... and in fact they were clearly defined concepts within the mathematical framework of Newtonian mechanics. But actually they were not well defined, as seen from the relations of uncertainty. One may say that regarding their position in Newtonian mechanics they were well defined, but in their relation to nature, they were not. This shows that we can never know beforehand which limitations will be put on the applicability of certain concepts by the extension of our knowledge into the remote parts of nature, into which we can only penetrate with the most elaborate tools. Therefore, in the process of penetration we are bound sometimes to use our concepts in a way which is not justified and which carries no meaning. Insistence on the postulate of complete logical clarification would make science impossible. We are reminded... of the old wisdom that one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Context: Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such as electrons. This phenomenon has been observed in laboratory experiments and scientists believe they have proven it takes place. They’re not talking about faster than the speed of light. Speed has nothing to do with it. The entangled objects somehow communicate instantaneously at a distance. If that is true, distance has no meaning. Light-years have no meaning. Space has no meaning. In a sense, the entangled objects are not even communicating. They are the same thing. At the “quantum level” (and I don’t know what that means), everything may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am more content with questions than answers.
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist
Silence is a Commons (1982)
Context: Machines which ape people are tending to encroach on every aspect of people's lives, and that such machines force people to behave like machines. The new electronic devices do indeed have the power to force people to "communicate" with them and with each other on the terms of the machine. Whatever structurally does not fit the logic of machines is effectively filtered from a culture dominated by their use.
The machine-like behaviour of people chained to electronics constitutes a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity which, for most people in the long run, becomes intolerable. Observations of the sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.
Peter Matthiessen book The Snow Leopard
The Snow Leopard (1978)
Context: The ancient intuition that all matter, all “reality,” is energy, that all phenomena, including time and space, are mere crystallizations of mind, is an idea with which few physicists have quarreled since the theory of relativity first called into question the separate identities of energy and matter. Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form; that matter is insubstantial in origin, a temporary aggregate of the pervasive energy that animates the electron. … The cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center. Such an idea holds no terror for mystics; in the mystical vision, the universe, its center, and its origins are simultaneous, all around us, all within us, and all One.
Max Born (1882–1970) physicist
From the Postcrip to 'The restless universe' (1951), pp. 225-226
Physics in my generation (1956)
Context: The dance of atoms, electrons and nuclei, which in all its fury is subject to God's eternal laws, has been entangled with another restless Universe which may well be the Devil's: the human struggle for power and domination, which eventually becomes history. My optimistic enthusiasm about the disinterested search for truth has been severely shaken. I wonder at my simplemindedness when I re-read what I said on the modern fulfilment of the alchemists dream: "Now however, the motive is not the lust for gold, cloaked by the mystery of magic arts, but the scientists' pure curiosity. For it is clear from the beginning that we may not expect wealth too." Gold means power, power to rule and to have a big share in the riches of this world. Modern alchemy is even a short-cut to this end, it provides power directly; a power to dominate and to threaten and hurt on a scale never heard of before. And this power we have actually seen displayed in ruthless acts of warfare, in the devastation of whole cities and the destruction of their population.
James Clavell (1921–1994) American novelist
Hélène Delambre
The Fly (1958)
Context: I get so scared sometimes. The suddenness of our age! Electronics, rockets, earth satellites, supersonic flight, and now this. It's not so much who invents them. It's the fact they exist. … Everything's going so fast, I'm just not ready to take it all in. It's, it's all so quick
“The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.”
Marshall McLuhan book The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
Context: The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. (p. 36)
Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran
Excerpted Comments Made by Reza Pahlavi of Iran to a Group of Prominent American Business Leaders in New York City http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=414&page=2, Dec. 9, 2009. <br class="br">Speeches, 2008-2009
Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist
Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6
Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer
Slaves of Time (p. 16)
Short fiction, The Robot Who Looked Like Me (1978)
Charles Stross The Laundry Files
Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 7, “Nightmare Beach” (p. 143)
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p. 224)
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist
Ecology, during the last ten years, has acquired a new meaning. It is still the name for a branch of professional biology, but the term now increasingly serves as the label under which a broad, politically organized general public analyzes and influences technical decisions.
Silence is a Commons (1982)
James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer
The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 10 - Worlds Without End
Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist
The external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Later perhaps we may inquire whether in our zeal to cut out all that is unreal we may not have used the knife too ruthlessly. Perhaps, indeed, reality is a child which cannot survive without its nurse illusion. But if so, that is of little concern to the scientist, who has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his investigations in the world of shadows and is content to leave to the philosopher the determination of its exact status in regard to reality. In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. Then comes the alchemist Mind who transmutes the symbols. The sparsely spread nuclei of electric force become a tangible solid; their restless agitation becomes the warmth of summer; the octave of aethereal vibrations becomes a gorgeous rainbow. Nor does the alchemy stop here. In the transmuted world new significances arise which are scarcely to be traced in the world of symbols; so that it becomes a world of beauty and purpose — and, alas, suffering and evil.
The frank realisation that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.
Introduction
The Nature of the Physical World (1928)
Robert Monroe (1915–1995) American founder of The Monroe Institute
Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Chapter 8. Because the Bible Tells Me So
Richard Wolf American music producer
Composer Spotlight: Richard Wolf https://www.mixonline.com/sfp/composer-spotlight-richard-wolf-369033 (January 1, 2002)