Epistemology

From Frequency to Meaning: Vector Space Models of Semantics

Turney, PD, Pantel P.  2009.  From Frequency to Meaning: Vector Space Models of Semantics. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. 1:1–1.

Markets are Efficient if and Only if P = NP

“what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?”

He [Ludwig Wittgenstein] once greeted me with the question: “Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis?” I replied: “I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth.” “Well,” he asked, “what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?”
 

An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (London 1959, p. 151)

Any theory that makes progress is bound to be initially counterintuitive.

Any theory that makes progress is bound to be initially counterintuitive.

The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA 1987, p. 6)

the map is not the territory

The map is not the territory.

A Non-Aristotelian System and its Necessity for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics (1931)

Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable.

Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable.

Notre destin et les lettres, 1937

a man must go forth from where he stands. He cannot jump to the absolute, he must evolve toward it

...a man must go forth from where he stands
he cannot jump to the absolute, he must evolve toward it (can you hear that)
Krishna says at any given moment in time we are what we are
Arjuna we have to accept the consequences of being ourselves
and only through this acceptance can we begin to evolve further
we may select the battleground but we cannot avoid the battle...

The Sojourn of Arjuna

nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.

My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it ‘information’, but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it ‘uncertainty’. When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, ‘You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.

Conversation between Claude Shannon and John von Neumann regarding what name to give to the “measure of uncertainty” or attenuation in phone-line signals (1949)

that large-scale random phenomena in their collective action create strict, nonrandom regularity

In fact, all epistemologic value of the theory of probability is based on this: that large-scale random phenomena in their collective action create strict, nonrandom regularity.

1968, p. 1

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Image of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.)
Author: Robert M. Pirsig
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (2008)
Binding: Paperback, 448 pages
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