Best function & organisms Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the capacity of any feature, however well adapted to a present role.”

Ifs Knows Wells Past Form Lying Roles Capacity Machines Function Certainty Features Imperfect Organisms Unpredictable Adapted Quirky Optimal

Book:Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History

Source: Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History

“Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding. Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life.”

Feels Humans States Pain Turns Sex Animal Function Plant Intense Transition Killers Users Organisms Timeless Delay Discomfort Junk Withdrawal Opium Stationary Painless Libido Sex Drive

Author:William S. Burroughs

“We are learning that the earth functions like an invisible organism. We are the various cells of one living being. Those who work to save the earth are its antibodies.”

Earth Function Various Invisible Cells Organisms Antibodies

Author:Jeremy Rifkin

“A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. .. When any living organism is attacked, its whole function seems to aim towards reproduction.”

Inspirational Whole Seems Dying Capable Function Aim Extraordinary Endurance Organisms Reproduction Living Organisms

Book:The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Source: The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

“A city grows like an organism. It is a structure of living and working together a mix of functions.”

Together Grows Cities Function Structure Working Together Organisms

Author:Jaime Lerner

“Whether this vast homogeneous expanse of isotropic matter is fitted not only to be a medium of physical interaction between distant bodies, and to fulfil other physical functions of which perhaps we have as yet no conception, but also to constitute the material organism of beings exercising functions of life and mind as high or higher than ours are at present is a question far transcending the limits of physical speculation.”

Mind Matter Body Materials Higher Exercise Limits Function Mediums Conception Interaction Organisms Speculation Transcending Expanse Homogeneous

Book:Scientific Papers

Source: Scientific Papers

“A self that is very robust, that has many, many levels of organization, from simple to complex, and that functions as a sort of witness to what is going on in our organisms.”

Self Simple Levels Organization Function Complexes Witness Organisms Robust

Author:Antonio Damasio

“One of the functions of an organization, of any organism, is to anticipate the future, so that those relationships can persist over time.”

Organization Function Persist Organisms Anticipate

Author:Kevin Kelly

“A property of an organism enters into its life (and survival) in many different ways, some more salient than others. But there is no simple notion of its being "for" some function.”

Way Different Simple Survival Function Property Notion Different Ways Organisms

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Most of us have no sympathy with the rich idler who spends his life in pleasure without ever doing any work. But even he fulfills a function in the life of the social organism. He sets an example of luxury that awakens in the multitude a consciousness of new needs and gives industry the incentive to fulfill them.”

Needs Giving Social Pleasure Consciousness Rich Example Industry Function Luxury Multitudes Organisms Incentives No Sympathy Idlers

Author:Ludwig von Mises

“Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.”

Thinking Age Social Virtue Nice Risk Wall Easier Safe Function Twenties Oneself Settling Upset Prisoner Organisms Hierarchy Rest Of Your Life Making Changes Disapproval

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“The chemical differences among various species and genera of animals and plants are certainly as significant for the history of their origins as the differences in form. If we could define clearly the differences in molecular constitution and functions of different kinds of organisms, there would be possible a more illuminating and deeper understanding of question of the evolutionary reactions of organisms than could ever be expected from morphological considerations.”

“Biologists have long attempted by chemical means to induce in higher organisms predictable and specific changes which thereafter could be transmitted in series as hereditary characters. Among microorganisms the most striking example of inheritable and specific alterations in cell structure and function that can be experimentally induced and are reproducible under well defined and adequately controlled conditions is the transformation of specific types of Pneumococcus.”

“All living organisms are but leaves on the same tree of life. The various functions of plants and animals and their specialized organs are manifestations of the same living matter. This adapts itself to different jobs and circumstances, but operates on the same basic principles. Muscle contraction is only one of these adaptations. In principle it would not matter whether we studied nerve, kidney or muscle to understand the basic principles of life. In practice, however, it matters a great deal.”

“Scientific practice is above all a story-telling practice. ... Biology is inherently historical, and its form of discourse is inherently narrative. ... Biology as a way of knowing the world is kin to Romantic literature, with its discourse about organic form and function. Biology is the fiction appropriate to objects called organisms; biology fashions the facts "discovered" about organic beings.”

World Way Facts Stories Form Science Literature Fiction Knowledge Practice History Knowing Fashion Objects Accounts Function Historical Narrative Appropriate Biology Organisms Discourse

Author:Donna J. Haraway

“The world is too complicated in all parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together. Each part of a living thing depends on all its other parts to function. How does each part know? How is each part specified at conception? The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some type of organizing principle-an architect.”

“Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to unbuild walls.”

Social Wall Function Prisoner Organisms Disapproval

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“If our society continues to support basic research on how living organisms function, it is likely that my great grandchildren will be spared the agony of losing family members to most types of cancer.”

Ifs Support Type Members Losing Research Function Cancer Our Society Agony Organisms Grandchildren Family Members Living Organisms Great Grandchildren Basic Research

Author:Paul D. Boyer

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