Those who believe that humans use only 10% of their brain capacity use only 10% of their brain capacity.
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Only when it passes you by you can see exactly how much exhaust it does produce.
Even those who see double easily recognize two-faced people.
Ancient Pythagoreans would be surprised to learn that, because of their reluctance to believe in the existence of irrational numbers, they (the Pythagoreans) are now considered irrational.
Pohuists believe that going through the motions is the best exercise.
Yo mama so limited she thinks drinking potato vodka is going against the grain.
And what about his colleagues? Why were they able to question his Fifth postulate from the very beginning, but started questioning his First postulate only in the 20th century (when the opaque sets were invented)?
The shortest distance between two aphoristic points is the one-liner.
They say that the best ideas are born in the shower. No way! The idea of showering was not born in the shower. It is the same with:
This is what many authors ask. I admit I do not know the answer. I know one other thing:
If those authors really knew how Rockefeller made his billions, they would be making billions, not writing papers and books about him. 1. First we state the (strong version of) Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in blonde-friendly 5-word form: your language determines your thinking.
2. Then we refer the reader to the expert's claim that English and Bulgarian are the two most analytic European languages. 3. Then we ask ourselves why the English and Bulgarians are not more highly analytical in their thinking than the other Europeans. It's elementary, my dear Watson, it is because the (strong version of) Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is false. QED. 4. Let us address one specific weakness of both (strong and weak) versions of the hypothesis. Your language does not determine, but only may (or may not) influence your thinking. This was noticed long ago: some of the brightest minds do not think verbally. "I very rarely think in words. The thought comes and I can only try to express it in words afterwards," Einstein used to say (see item 2 here). "When your eyes get used to seeing the bigness of little things, the really big things leave you indifferent," TV journalist Kevork Kevorkian wrote. I have no idea what he had in mind, but in my mind I see Basho, Davila, the Beatles, and William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence":
To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. I also see Leonhard Euler who, by looking at the small map of Königsberg, laid the foundations of Graph Theory. They say the shortest distance between two points is the straight line. Maybe, but not when it comes to points of view.
When Alan Turing was thinking about the Turing machine he was able to see the Infinity, i.e. he was able to see his machine entering an infinite loop.
When Alan Turing was thinking about the Turing test he was unable to see the Infinity, i.e. he was unable to see that his argument produces an infinite regress. In other words, if the criterion for intelligent behavior of the tested (computer) is its ability to fool the tester (human) that it (the computer) is human, then the criterion for intelligent behavior of the human (tester) is his ability to fool someone else (the metatester) that he (the human) is someone else (a metatester), then the criterion for the intelligent behavior of the metatester is her ability to fool the metametatester that she (the metatester) is a metametatester, then ... Filip Saidak constructed the following sequence:
n, n(n+1), n(n+1)[n(n+1)+1], ... where the factors of every term are pairwise coprime. Based on this sequence he proved Euclid's theorem. The sequence consists of numbers of type X, where X means natural. What else can it mean? 1. If n=6, then the Saidak's sequence consists of Zumkeller numbers (see Corollary 5 here). 2. If n>0 is a promic number, then the Saidak's sequence consists of promic numbers. 3. If n>0 is an even number, then the Saidak's sequence consists of even numbers. 4. If n and n+1 are coprime arithmetic numbers, then the Saidak's sequence consists of arithmetic numbers (since the arithmetic mean has multiplicative property, i.e. A(a*b) = A(a)*A(b), when a and b are coprime). Any ideas for other meanings of X? Chinese philosopher Confucius said that if you seek revenge, you must dig two graves. In neighboring Japan, where Confucianism is one of the three main religions, two graves are not enough.
During an argument Asano Naganori tried to kill Kira Yoshinaka, for which he was sentenced to commit seppuku. For two years Naganori's former samurai, who after his death became known as The 47 ronin, planned how to avenge the death of their master. They murdered Yoshinaka and committed suicide afterwards. Two graves were not enough, the thirst for revenge took 49 lives. Edward de Bono wrote once that in an afternoon a workshop of his generated 21,000 ideas for a steel-producing company. He conveniently omitted to mention how many of them were eventually implemented.
I give my ideas for free here. This is the latest one: Ideas are like diamonds, they shine only when they are exposed to light. On the pages of various books I came across the question of why evolution has not erased idiocy from the history of mankind. Authors, all of them smart and literate, speculated that there were some evolutionary advantages in idiocy, which I think is a huge mistake.
The idiots are not representatives of the species Homo Idioticus. Had they been a separate species, they wouldn't have survived. They are simply products of non-idiot parents, resulting from chance or bad choices: a) having children at an advanced age; b) smoking, drinking and other stresses during pregnancy (or earlier); c) lack of (or incorrect) parental care in the early years. In other words, the decisions of people we consider normal have produced and will continue to produce idiots. Conclusion: Idiocy prospers not because of any evolutionary advantages, but because people produce it in large numbers and sizes. Speaking of sizes, today's XL idiots have modern weapons that not only help them survive, but prevent them from realizing their idiocy (and even strengthen it). I am talking about their education, occupation and social (financial) standing. Let us illustrate this with an example: in other times 90% of today's diplomas, jobs, books, films, paintings and songs would guarantee their holders/owners/authors/performers a place if not at the stake, then at least among the village idiots. It's terrible if in the heyday, and especially in the sunset, of your powers you realize you used them to walk away from yourself.
Some people try to economize on words, to seek maximum impact with a minimum number of words. They think the less words they use the more expensive their words are.
Those who believe in the "time is money" theory come to the opposite conclusion: the longer it takes to write it or read it, the more expensive the book is. In other words, they think the price of the book is written not on its cover, but on its last page. "A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points," Alan Kay used to say. Today we cha(lle)nge the perspective of Andrey Sakharov, the "father" of the Soviet thermonuclear bomb, who after its second test suddenly realized the following: We, the inventors, scientists, engineers, and craftsmen, had created a terrible weapon, the most terrible weapon in human history; but its use would lie entirely outside our control. From my perspective things look quite differently: Thank God the use of the Bomb was beyond your control! If its use wasn't beyond your control, according to the "easy come (invent), easy go (use)" principle, you could have used it too easily! While the eggheads were arguing whether the Schrödinger's cat is dead or alive, it died due to lack of oxygen.
WATSON: Where is the progress when 2000 years after Christ there are few people worth 30 pieces of silver?
HOLMES: It's elementary, my dear Watson, they call progress the fact that the people worth 1 piece of silver each became 8 billion. It's been a long time since I've discovered that people err even when they criticize the errors of others. Now it occurs to me to criticize the linguistic errors of a critic of linguistic errors. My intention is to take as an example not the ordinary Joe, but the Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek.
In his last book, Hayek titled one of the chapters "Our Poisoned Language". At first glance I see two errors: 1. A basic linguistic error is to uncritically anthropomorphize. In this case, the language cannot be poisoned, it is the specific user who is (or is not). 2. Another common linguistic error is to uncritically privatize. Our language, our party, our motherland, our Mother Earth. A small language error triggers an avalanche of errors: we think of the flora, fauna, land, water, and air as truly ours, and we treat them as we please. Let's finish aphoristically: With 3 words a great mind can produce 2 errors. We, ordinary people, need much more words to do that. We come from the land where palms tall grow
Where the midnight wind makes hot dunes flow The power of Allah Will drive our rafts to new land To work all week, to earn and buy Europe, we are coming |
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