We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces, which represent 30% of our musical experience.
Brian EnoRead
Every increase in your knowledge is a simultaneous decrease. You learn and you unlearn at the same time. A new certainty is a new doubt as well.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Gaining knowledge involves letting go of old beliefs, creating both certainty and doubt simultaneously.
This quote by Brian Eno highlights the dual nature of knowledge acquisition. As we expand our understanding and learn new concepts, we simultaneously challenge and unlearn previously held beliefs. Each new insight brings a certainty that is tempered by the recognition of new uncertainties, suggesting that wisdom is an ongoing, dynamic process of growth and adaptation.
Themes
KnowledgeLearningUnlearningCertaintyDoubtWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about lifelong learning, you might say, 'As Brian Eno puts it, every increase in your knowledge is a simultaneous decrease.'
More from Brian Eno
All quotes βI think that technology is always invented for historical reasons, to solve a historical problem. But they very soon reveal themselves to be capable of doing things that aren't historical that nobody had ever thought of doing before.
Brian EnoRead
When I first started making ambient music, I was setting up systems using synthesizers that generated pulses more or less randomly. The end result is a kind of music that continuously changes. Of course, until computers came along, all I could actually present of that work was a piece of its output.
Brian EnoRead
People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening,' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.
Brian EnoRead
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
Brian EnoRead
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
Brian EnoRead
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