A professor is one who can speak on any subject - for precisely fifty minutes. Norbert Wiener More Quotes by Norbert Wiener More Quotes From Norbert Wiener Until we in the community have made up our minds that what we really want is expiation, or removal, or reform, or or the discouragement of potential criminals, we shall get none of these, but only a confusion in which crime breeds more crime. Norbert Wiener communityconfusionmind Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all. Norbert Wiener eyediscoveryscience The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat. Norbert Wiener mathematicalcatwitty I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what' Norbert Wiener maylittlesmen Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions. It seems almost as if progress itself and our fight against the increase of entropy intrinsically must end in the downhill path from which we are trying to escape. Norbert Wiener progressfightingtrying A painter like Picasso, who runs through many periods and phases, ends up by saying all those things which are on the tip of the tongue of the age to say, and finally sterilizes the originality of his contemporaries and juniors. Norbert Wiener tongueagerunning The sense of tragedy is that the world is not a pleasant little nest made for our protection, but a vast and largely hostile environment, in which we can achieve great things only by defying the gods; and that this defiance inevitably brings its own punishment. Norbert Wiener punishmenttragedyworld The automatic machine, whatever we thinkof any feelings it may or may not have, is the precise economic equivalent of the slave. Norbert Wiener machinesfeelingsmay Science is better paid than at any time in the past. The results of this pay have been to attract into science many of those for whom the pay is the first consideration, and who scorn to sacrifice immediate profit for the freedom of development of their own concept. Moreover, this inner development, important and indispensable as it may be to the world of science in the future, generally does not have the tendency to put a single cent into the pockets of their employers. Norbert Wiener sacrificeimportantpast Information is information; it is neither matter nor energy. Norbert Wiener informationenergymatter The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. Norbert Wiener informationmatterbrain Any use of a human being in which less is demanded of him and less is attributed to him than his full status is a degradation and a waste. Norbert Wiener degradationwasteuse We are in the position of the man who has only two ambitions in life. One is to invent the universal solvent which will dissolve any solid substance, and the second is to invent the universal container which will hold any liquid. Whatever this inventor does, he will be frustrated. Norbert Wiener ambitionmentwo It is possible to believe in progress as a fact without believing in progress as an ethical principle; but in the catechism of many Americans, the one goes with the other. Norbert Wiener ethical-principlesprogressbelieve If the human being is condemned and restricted to perform the same functions over and over again, he will not even be a good ant, not to mention a good human being. Norbert Wiener functionhumansants There are fields of scientific work...which have been explored from the different sides of pure mathematics, statistics, electrical engineering, and neurophysiology...in which every single notion receives a separate and different name from each group, and in which important work has been triplicated or quadruplicated, while still other important work is delayed by the unavailability in one field of results that may have already become classical in the next field. Norbert Wiener engineeringimportantnames The modern physicist is a quantum theorist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a student of gravitational relativity on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sunday, he is praying... that someone will find the reconciliation between the two views. Norbert Wiener fridaysundaymonday A significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent. Norbert Wiener organizationworldideas The more we get out of the world the less we leave, and in the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our own survival. Norbert Wiener survivalrunninglong What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead. Norbert Wiener grantedresultsinteresting
