“Today the major reason for our interest in Flatland is that for the first time we can achieve some of the dreams of our ancestors a century ago and obtain direct visual experience of phenomena in a dimension higher than our own.” FirstsReasonDreamTodayInterestAchieveCenturyHigherMajorsFirst TimeDirectLogicCertaintyUncertaintyReasoningVisualsDimensionsAncestorOntology Author:Thomas Banchoff
“The increased abstraction in mathematics that took place during the early part of this century was paralleled by a similar trend in the arts. In both cases, the increased level of abstraction demands greater effort on the part of anyone who wants to understand the work.” WantArtLevelsEffortCasesGreaterCenturyDemandLogicMathematicsCertaintyUncertaintyReasoningTrendsAbstractionOntology Author:Keith Devlin
“In some far-off distant time, when the twentieth century history of primitive computing is just a murky memory, someone is likely to suppose that devices known as logic gates were named after the famous co-founder of Microsoft Corporation” MemoriesKnownCenturyLogicCorporationsDevicesGatesPrimitiveFoundersTwentieth CenturyMicrosoftComputing Book:Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software Source: Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
“At one time, many philosophers held that faultless "laws of thought" were somehow inherent, a priori, in the very nature of mind. This belief was twice shaken in the past century; first when Russell and his successors showed how the logic men employ can be defective, and later when Freud and Piaget started to reveal the tortuous ways in which our minds actually develop.” MenWayMindFirstsPastLawBeliefCenturyLogicPhilosopherOne TimeInherentSuccessorsDefective Author:Jean Piaget
“It has been a long road from Plato's Meno to the present, but it is perhaps encouraging that most of the progress along that road has been made since the turn of the twentieth century, and a large fraction of it since the midpoint of the century. Thought was still wholly intangible and ineffable until modern formal logic interpreted it as the manipulation of formal tokens. And it seemed still to inhabit mainly the heaven of Platonic ideals, or the equally obscure spaces of the human mind, until computers taught us how symbols could be processed by machines.” MindHumansLongHas BeensMadeStillsTurnsHeavenSpaceProgressModernCenturyTaughtComputerIdealsLogicMachinesSymbolsManipulationHuman MindFormalObscurePlatoTwentieth CenturyFractionsTaught UsTokensIntangibleIneffablePlatonicLong RoadPlato S Author:Allen Newell
“... while our men seem thoroughly abreast of the times on almost every other subject, when they strike the woman question they drop back into sixteenth century logic. They leave nothing to be desired generally in regard to gallantry and chivalry, but they actually do not seem sometimes to have outgrown that old contemporary of chivalry--the idea that women may stand on pedestals or live in doll houses,... but they must not furrow their brows with thought or attempt to help men tug at the great questions of the world.” MenWorldMayIdeasSometimesHelpingSeemsHouseSubjectsCenturyLogicRegardStrikesContemporaryHelp MeDollsBrowsPedestalChivalryGallantry Author:Anna Julia Cooper
“Why ... do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now.” PeopleSoulAmericaPastPoliticalPassionLeftPowerfulCenturyEmotionalFoolCapitalismHatredLogicFunctionMythSocialismHatefulEnviousAnti SemitismScapegoatRecessAmericanismBlameless Author:Michael Gove
“What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world - that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” WorldHumansInterestPowerfulWonderSpecialCenturyDangerousPlanetsIndustryMassLogicPlantRememberedPropagandaPoisonConvinceDelusionHistorianDestroyingWorld HistoryFlawedCoalitionsSpecial InterestsCo2ToxinsUnrelenting Author:Richard Lindzen