Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Interpretation
Gaining a new perspective can significantly enhance your understanding and intelligence in problem-solving.
This quote emphasizes the idea that perspective, or the way we view and interpret information or situations, can greatly influence our cognitive abilities. Alan Kay suggests that having a fresh or alternative viewpoint can be as valuable as having a high level of intelligence, as it enables us to approach problems more effectively and creatively.
In practice
In a team meeting, when discussing approaches to a project, you could say, 'Remember, perspective is worth 80 IQ points; letβs consider some alternative viewpoints.'
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
The greatest single programming language ever designed
By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice.
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
If you want to give light to others you have to glow yourself.
When the mind is turbulent, uncontrolled and restless, it is like a pond of water that is filled with mud. Therefore when we look within ourselves, all we perceive is the mud of our material conceptions of life. But when the mind is still through discipline, and through yoga, it is like a pond that has no waves and no turbulence. Then we can perceive through that crystal clear water the eternal nature of our soul.
I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
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