“We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five apples, five days... We are merely thinking of those relationships between those two groups which are entirely independent of the individual essences of any of the members of either group. This is a very remarkable feat of abstraction; and it must have taken ages for the human race to rise to it” ThinkingHumansChildrenTwoAgeIndividualNumbersRaceTakenFiveGroupsMembersLogicEssenceIndependentFishesCertaintyUncertaintyHuman RaceApplesReasoningAppropriateRemarkableEntityAbstractionFeatsOntology Author:Alfred North Whitehead
“Human attention, in the best of circumstances, is a fluid but fragile entity. Beyond a certain threshold, the more that is asked of it, the less well it performs. When this happens in a psychological experiment, it is interesting. When it happens in traffic, it can be fatal.” HumansWellsHappensCertainInterestingAttentionCircumstancesExperimentsPsychologicalFragileEntityTrafficFluidThreshold Author:Tom Vanderbilt