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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that we are transient beings shaped by our surroundings, not solid entities, but rather ongoing patterns of behavior and existence.
Norbert Wiener's quote reflects on the nature of existence, proposing that individuals are like whirlpools—temporary formations within the continuous flow of life. We are not fixed entities; instead, we are dynamic patterns that constantly evolve and influence one another, emphasizing the idea that our actions and characteristics are messages that can be shared and altered within the greater flow of existence.
In practice
During a philosophy class discussion about the nature of existence, this quote can be used to illustrate the concept of impermanence.
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.
I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
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.
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.
The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it?
No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.
Chances are, if you are following the crowd, you're following the wrong path.
We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.
I tell the truth; listen everyone. Only those who have Loved, will realise the Lord
What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.
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