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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that we are transient beings shaped by our surroundings, not solid entities, but rather ongoing patterns of behavior and existence.
Norbert Wiener's quote reflects on the nature of existence, proposing that individuals are like whirlpools—temporary formations within the continuous flow of life. We are not fixed entities; instead, we are dynamic patterns that constantly evolve and influence one another, emphasizing the idea that our actions and characteristics are messages that can be shared and altered within the greater flow of existence.
In practice
During a philosophy class discussion about the nature of existence, this quote can be used to illustrate the concept of impermanence.
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.
I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
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.
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.
I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters.
We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?
Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.
Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without ant errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless.
The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face.
I am in no way different from anyone else, that my predicament, my sense of aloneness or isolation may be precisely what unites me with everyone.
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