I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a distinction between practical skills ('know-how') and deeper understanding or awareness ('know-what').
Norbert Wiener's quote highlights the contemporary challenge faced by individuals, particularly in America, where proficiency in technical skills ('know-how') often overshadows the necessary comprehension of broader concepts and meanings ('know-what'). This suggests a superficial engagement with knowledge, prompting reflection on the importance of cultivating deeper insights to foster more meaningful lives and contributions.
In practice
In a speech about education reform, this quote can be used to highlight the need for deeper learning.
In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
The Advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.
Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor.
We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.
We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. _x000D_ A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message.
Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.
We're all given something to do. And when we don't follow what we're supposed to do, we always know when we're off track.
The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
'Bellyache' is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren't real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don't know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.
Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
The river has taught me to listen; you will learn from it, too. The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths.
Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.
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