Interesting quotations (on any subject)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I just came across this quote (or apparently a paraphrase) on a gardening forum, and am wondering what y'all might think of it:

The intuitive mind is a gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. But we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

(paraphrased) Albert Einstein

 

[Arcadia]

Oh dear, you're going to make us use our brains, aren't you? Urghh…..

I'm not sure, at this point in history, that I accept the premise that society honors the rational mind. At the moment, I'm more inclined to believe that we've all gone stark raving nuts. (Present company excepted, of course. ) 

I'll agree that the intuitive mind is a gift. But I don't see a flaw in honoring the servant, either. Can't we honor both? Oh, wait, what am I saying, that would be too rational.....

[Carol the Dabbler]

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Oh dear, you're going to make us use our brains, aren't you?

Well, I was kinda hoping....

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I'm not sure, at this point in history, that I accept the premise that society honors the rational mind. At the moment, I'm more inclined to believe that we've all gone stark raving nuts.

Or stark raving political, more's the pity.  But the quotation dates back several decades, so we may want to analyze it in that context.

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I'll agree that the intuitive mind is a gift. But I don't see a flaw in honoring the servant, either. Can't we honor both?

I don't think that the statement was intended to imply that honoring either was a flaw, just that honoring one to the exclusion of the other is a mistake.

*****

Einstein died in 1955, but the author of this article was able to trace anything resembling the quotation back only as far as 1976, in a book by one Bob Samples:

Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.

So Mr Samples attributes the "gift" and "servant" analogies to Einstein, but the full quotation, especially the final sentence, seems to have originated many years later, in his own book.  That doesn't mean it's not worth thinking about, of course.

[Arcadia]

I've always liked the Baha'i analogy of science and faith being the two wings of the same bird; the bird can't fly without both of them. I think that works analogy for intuition and rationality too. Whether we're promoting one over the other at the moment (or in Einstein's time) …. I don't know. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish what drives our stupidest impulses. Certainly "rational" arguments have been used many times to justify heinous actions, but that doesn't mean the actions weren't actually an intuitive response to something.

All I'm saying is … I'm not sure whether we can actually judge whether we're really favoring rationality … or just pretending to because we "think" rationality is "superior." Although maybe that amounts to the same thing as "honoring the servant" to the exclusion of heeding intuition. But I kind of doubt it …  my intuition tells me that people are generally hard-wired to employ both intuition and reason, but are not good at distinguishing between the two.

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

... my intuition tells me that people are generally hard-wired to employ both intuition and reason, but are not good at distinguishing between the two.

That's a good question, and I think you may well have a good point.

As I've said before, I have the impression that Sherlock (in the BBC series at any rate) isn't nearly as pure-logic as he seems to think he is; that his elaborate "deductions" are actually flashes of insight strung together with logic.

[Arcadia]

Don't they even kind of address that themselves in T6T? When Sherlock sees the Thatcher bust, and some instinct tells him it's important. And then he has that conversation with Mycroft about being able to predict anything, if you just know enough. Which I'm skeptical of, but Sherlock seemed earnest about it.  

Oh dear … somehow I just made my keyboard light up, and I don't know how to turn it off! Had no idea such a feature even existed! Kind of pretty.....

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Don't they even kind of address that themselves in T6T? When Sherlock sees the Thatcher bust, and some instinct tells him it's important. And then he has that conversation with Mycroft about being able to predict anything, if you just know enough. Which I'm skeptical of....

If "knowing enough" includes the butterfly effect, he's presumably correct in a technical sort of way -- though I don't see how a person could be sure that they had actually gotten all the facts and/or how they could gather the information quickly enough to deduce before the situation changed.  So from a practical standpoint, I'm skeptical too.

Anyhow, yes, I think they've hinted at Sherlock's intuition several times.  Just don't ask me to list them!

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Oh dear … somehow I just made my keyboard light up, and I don't know how to turn it off! Had no idea such a feature even existed! Kind of pretty....

I've never heard of such a thing either.  It's not ticking, is it?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Here's a video about how to turn your keyboard backlight on/off.  Warning: it starts out kinda loud!  And apparently different computers use different function keys for this.

 

[Arcadia]

On 11/7/2019 at 1:53 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

It's not ticking, is it?

No. Thank goodness.

Actually, shortly after I left last night, I googled the same thing as  you and found the right button. It even has the diagram of a lit up keyboard on it! (Not that I would have realized what that image meant if I hadn't learned its function first. ) That's the first time I've realized all the little f1, f2 etc. keys don't exist on this keyboard (not that I care, I never had any use for them anyway); it's all these little keys with pictographs instead, and they control things like volume and video playback, etc. Which I actually find kind of neat. Not that I'll ever use them, I bet; too used to doing everything the old fashioned way.

The mystery to me is how I ever hit one of those "function" buttons in the first place, as my hand was down near the shift key at the moment of activation...… Delayed response, maybe. I've discovered this new machine is pretty slow compared to others I've had. I'm seriously thinking of getting a different one.

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

... all the little f1, f2 etc. keys don't exist on this keyboard (not that I care, I never had any use for them anyway); it's all these little keys with pictographs instead....

I'm guessing it's the same thing, only marked differently.  On my computer, they're labeled with the f-number (very tiny in the upper left-hand corner) *and* the pictograph (larger and centered).

I would play around with those keys to see what they do -- but then what if a} I can't figure out what one of them did, and/or b} I can't figure out how to undid it?

[Arcadia]

Ah, I see ... there are indeed tiny little markings in the upper left corner of each of those keys, which may indeed be f1, f2, etc. Or not.... (I would love to have a SERIOUS talk with the geniuses who think it's a good idea to put gray letters on black keys in 4 point type.)

I did, in fact, go ahead and push every button. Most of them you just push again to turn off whatever feature it initiates (like the keyboard lights), some you just push the button next to it (like the volume; up/down). And some didn't do anything, I presume because I didn't have the corresponding, uh, app? ... in service at the time. So push away, you can't do much damage.

Oh, and there's one that brings up a menu for something or another; you just click somewhere else on the screen to get rid of It, like most menus.

Hmmm, there's one near the right side called "end." I haven't pushed that one yet. Let me save this first before I try it.  

 

 

[Arcadia]

Whew. It just goes to the bottom of the page. So "end" is opposite of "home." Got it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

53 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I would love to have a SERIOUS talk with the geniuses who think it's a good idea to put gray letters on black keys in 4 point type.

Ditto for website designers!!!

 

53 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

there's one near the right side called "end." I haven't pushed that one yet

 

52 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Whew. It just goes to the bottom of the page. So "end" is opposite of "home."

 

I still haven't acquired the habit of using Home, not sure why.  It and End seem useful enough, and would save me a lot of time scrolling.  New Year's resolution, maybe?

[Arcadia]

I have too many other things I need to learn, so acquiring an extra four methods for navigating my laptop is rather low on my list.  

Besides, I am, at best, only a middling typist. The chance that I would strike the wrong key is rather high. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 11/3/2019 at 10:18 PM, Arcadia said:

my intuition tells me that people are generally hard-wired to employ both intuition and reason, but are not good at distinguishing between the two.

 

On 11/4/2019 at 12:26 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

I have the impression that Sherlock (in the BBC series at any rate) isn't nearly as pure-logic as he seems to think he is; that his elaborate "deductions" are actually flashes of insight strung together with logic.

 

I had a look at the Study in Pink thread earlier today, and saw that Tim had quoted the BBC episode synopsis in the very first post, which includes this sentence:  "The two men couldn't be more different, but Sherlock's inspired leaps of intellect coupled with John's pragmatism soon forge an unbreakable alliance."

I love that phrase, "inspired leaps of intellect."  Just about sums it up, I think.  Wonder who came up with it?  Presumably the Moftisses?

[Arcadia]

Or BBC's PR department.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

The overall write-up was probably some combination of the two -- Moftiss filtered through the BBC's advertising department.  But that specific phrase "leaps of intellect" sounds like Moftiss to me.  And it also sounds (to me, at least) a whole lot like my phrase "flashes of insight strung together with logic."  So I'm guessing that they intentionally made Sherlock not quite as pure-logic as he'd like to think.

[Arcadia]

So I got curious and looked up "logic"; here's part of the Merriam-Webster definition "a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration...."

Now, inference … isn't that an interesting word? That implies a bit of intuitive thinking right there, doesn't it? To infer something is not the same, to me, as to know something … it requires a certain leap of faith. So logic itself could be described as, in some way, a function of insight.

Dizzy yet?  

[Carol the Dabbler]

Well, there's logic in the everyday sense of the word, and then there's formal logic (which is a branch of either philosophy or mathematics, depending on who you ask).  But yeah, everyday logic is basically just a matter of what makes sense to a person.

I have the impression, though, that when Sherlock Holmes (of any incarnation) uses the term, he means something a bit closer to the rigorous formal technique -- though if he thinks that's what he does, he may be flattering himself just a bit.

[Artemis]

"31 Famous Quotations You've Been Getting Wrong."

I would like to add:

"The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

"Jack of all trades, master of none; but oftentimes better than master of one."

 

[Arcadia]

Well, phooey. I always thought #7 was written by Robert Heinlein. (Kidding; I knew he was quoting, just never knew who.)

I've bookmarked that. Going to memorize it and confuse all my friends.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

10 hours ago, Artemis said:

"31 Famous Quotations You've Been Getting Wrong."

I would like to add:

"The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

"Jack of all trades, master of none; but oftentimes better than master of one."

I like both of your addenda.  Do you have any idea who said (or was supposed to have said) either of them?

Seems to me that the author of that article continued to miss the point in a few cases:

Quote

4.  This quote comes from 6:10 of 1 Timothy and the full version is “The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.” It’s a pretty close adaptation but adds a definitiveness that the original is lacking. The Bible suggests that money is a cause of evil – but hardly the only one.

Actually, St. Paul didn't say that "money is a cause of evil" either -- he criticized the love of money, not money itself.

Quote

16. “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

The article quotes a few contenders for the original version of "Murphy's Law," but fails to note that the usual quote differs in meaning from all of them.  "If anything can be done wrong, it will be" is a comment on human nature, while the usual quote is fatalistic.  This is a clear example of Murphy's Corollary:  "If anything can be misquoted, it will be."

Quote

24. “The proof is in the pudding.”

I've have heard that mangled version a few times, but I've more often heard the original saying misused.  As the article points out, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating" actually “meant ... that you had to try out food to know whether it was good.”  This comes from the original meaning of the word "prove," which was "test" (as in "proving grounds").  A lot of people seem to think it means "eating the pudding will prove that it's good," in the modern sense of the word.

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

This is a clear example of Murphy's Corollary:  "If anything can be misquoted, it will be."

 

[Artemis]

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Quote

"And it is also said," answered Frodo: "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

I remembered that saying, but wasn't sure who said it, or in which of Tolkien's books.  Looks like it's from somewhere in Lord of the Rings.

But if Peter Jackson is to be believed, Frodo may have heard it from Bilbo -- who I'm pretty sure said it to Elrond in one of the Hobbit movies.