I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a distinction between practical skills ('know-how') and deeper understanding or awareness ('know-what').
Norbert Wiener's quote highlights the contemporary challenge faced by individuals, particularly in America, where proficiency in technical skills ('know-how') often overshadows the necessary comprehension of broader concepts and meanings ('know-what'). This suggests a superficial engagement with knowledge, prompting reflection on the importance of cultivating deeper insights to foster more meaningful lives and contributions.
In practice
In a speech about education reform, this quote can be used to highlight the need for deeper learning.
In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
The Advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.
Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor.
We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.
We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. _x000D_ A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message.
Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.
You, and you alone, get to determine whether you are going to react positively about something or negatively about something - or, interestingly, have no reaction at all. Your emotions are entirely under your control. Your feelings are what you want them to be.
Our life comes in segments, and we have to understand that we can have it all if we're not trying to do it all at once.
I'll give you some symptoms of a sign that your faith is deteriorating-whenever you face all of your problems and you trust only your plans to get you out-it is a sign that your faith is deteriorating.
We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good.
Inflict not on an enemy every injury in your power, for he may afterwards become your friend.
Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.
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