TTIX 2009
The Idea of the Idea
Chris Lott
chris.lott@alaska.edu
1

I must create a system or be
enslaved by another man's.
I will not reason and
compare;
My business is to create.
—William Blake
2

It is better to entertain an
idea than to take it home
to live with you for the rest
of your life.
—Randall Jarrell
3

If particulars are to
have meaning, there
must be universals.
—Plato
4

The many, as we say, are
seen but not known, and
the ideas are known but
not seen.
—Plato
5

Outward beauty is a true sign of
inner goodness. This loveliness,
indeed, is impressed upon the
body in varying degrees as a
token by which the soul can be
recognized for what it is, just as
with trees the beauty of the
blossom testifies to the goodness
of the fruit.
—Baldassare Castiglione 6

If a man, fixing his attention on
these and the like difficulties, does
away with ideas of things and will
not admit that every individual thing
has its own determinate idea which
is always one and the same, he will
have nothing on which his mind can
rest; and so he will utterly destroy
the power of reasoning.
—Plato
7

There are two ways of
spreading light:
to be the candle or
the mirror that reflects it.
—Edith Wharton
8

A rival to
Prometheus, [Vaucanson]
seemed to steal the heavenly
fires in his search to give life.
—Voltaire
9

Jacquard is he who
attempts the impossible…
to tie a knot in a stretched
string.
— Nicolas Carnot
10

You are aware that the system of cards which
Jacquard invented are the means by which we
can communicate any pattern desired. Availing
myself of the same beautiful invention I have
communicated to my Calculating Engine order
to calculate any formula however complicated.
But I have advanced on stage further and
without making all the cards, I have
communicated orders to follow certain laws in
the use of those card and thus the Calculating
Engine can solve any equations...
—Charles Babbage
11

The economy of human time
is the next advantage of
machinery in manufactures.
—Charles Babbage
12

Man need not be
degraded to a machine by
being denied to be a
ghost in a machine.
—Gilbert Ryle
13

You ask me if I keep a
notebook to record my
great ideas. I've only ever
had one.
—Albert Einstein
14

Great ideas originate
in the muscles.
—Thomas Edison
15

One of the things that
makes Wittgenstein a real
artist to me is that he
realized that no
conclusion could be more
horrible than solipsism.
—David Foster Wallace
16

Ideas won’t keep:
something must be done
about them.
—Alfred North Whitehead
17

The great difficulty in
education is to get
experience out of ideas.
—George Santayana
18

Ideas are the great
warriors of the world.
—James Garfield
19

Harold, like the rest of
us, had many impressions
which saved him the
trouble of distinct ideas.
—George Eliot
20

It has become appallingly
obvious that our technology
has exceeded our humanity.
—Albert Einstein
21

The march of science and
technology does not imply
growing intellectual
complexity in the lives of
most people. It often
means the opposite.
—Thomas Sowell
22

Technology is making
gestures precise and
brutal, and with them
men.
—Theodore Adorno
23

Utopianism is probably a
necessary social device for
generating the superhuman
efforts without which no
major revolution is
achieved.
—Eric Hobsbawm
24

The nature of an innovation is
that it will arise at a fringe where
it can afford to become prevalent
enough to establish its
usefulness without being
overwhelmed by the inertia of the
orthodox system.
—Kevin Kelly
25

Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
and sit attentive to his own applause.
—Alexander Pope
26

Any man who can drive
safely while kissing a
pretty girl is simply not
giving the kiss the
attention it deserves.
—Albert Einstein
27

Our inventions are wont to
be pretty toys, which
distract our attention from
serious things. They are
but improved means to an
unimproved end.
—Henry David Thoreau
28

In the intellectual
order, the virtue of
humility is nothing more
nor less than the power of
attention.
—Simone Weil
29

Tell me to what you pay
attention and I will tell you
who you are.
—Jose Ortega y Gasset
30

Genius is nothing but
continued attention.
—Claude Adrien Helvetius
31

You're a wise person if
you can easily direct your
attention to whatever
needs it.
—Terence
32

Choice of attention - to pay
attention to this and ignore that
- is to the inner life what choice
of action is to the outer. In both
cases, a man is responsible for
his choice and must accept the
consequences, whatever they
may be.
—W. H. Auden
33

Every day, mindful practice.
When the mind is disciplined
then the Way can work for us.
Otherwise, all we do is talk of
Tao; everything is just words;
and the world will know us as
its one great fool.
—Loy Ching-Yuen
34

As is your sort of mind,
So is your sort of search;
you'll find
What you desire.
—Robert Browning
35

Anything done with
focus, awareness or
mindfulness is a
meditation.
—David Harp
36

When we talk about
understanding, surely it
takes place only when the
mind listens completely - the
mind being your heart, your
nerves, your ears- when you
give your whole attention to
it.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti 37

Nothing interferes with my
concentration. You could
put on an orgy in my
office and I wouldn't look
up. Well, maybe once.
—Isaac Asimov
38

Meditation here may think
down hours to moments.
Here the heart may give a
useful lesson to the head
and learning wiser grow
without his books.
—William Cowper
39

One must have chaos in
one, to give birth to a
dancing star.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
40

To make a prairie
it takes clover and one bee
one clover, and a bee,
and revery
The revery alone will do,
if bees are few.
—Emily Dickinson
41

[Flow is] being completely
involved in an activity for its
own sake. The ego falls away.
Time flies. Every
action, movement, and thought
follows inevitably from the
previous one, like playing jazz.
Your whole being is
involved, and you're using your
skills to the utmost.\"
42

Happiness: an agreeable
sensation arising from
contemplating the misery
of another.
—Ambrose Bierce
43

One question: if this is the
Information Age, how come
nobody knows anything?.
—Robert Mankoff
44

Everybody gets so much
common information all
day long that they lose
their common sense.
—Gertrude Stein
45

Chock them so damned full of
“facts” they feel stuffed, but
absolutely “brilliant” with
information. Then they’ll feel
they’re thinking, they’ll get a
sense of motion without moving.
—Ray Bradbury
46

A friend is one before
whom I may think aloud.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
47

A virtuous circle is a complex of
events that reinforces itself
through a feedback loop. A
virtuous circle has favorable
results, and a vicious circle has
detrimental results. A virtuous
circle can transform into a
vicious circle if eventual
negative feedback is ignored.
—Gang of Wikipedia Monkeys
48

Repression is not the way to virtue.
When people restrain themselves
out of fear, their lives are by
necessity diminished. Only through
freely chosen discipline can life be
enjoyed and still kept within the
bounds of reason.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
49

To love rightly is to love
what is orderly and
beautiful in an educated
and disciplined way.
—Plato
50

The Six Virtues
• Wisdom and knowledge
• Courage
• Humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Transcendence
—Institute on Character
51

…the so-called real world of men
and money and power hums
merrily along in a pool of fear and
anger and frustration and craving
and worship of self … the really
important kind of freedom involves
attention and awareness and
discipline, and being able to truly
care about other people and to
sacrifice for them over and over in
myriad petty, unsexy ways every
day. 52

TTIX 2009
The Idea of the Idea
Chris Lott
http://chrislott.org/
chris.lott@alaska.edu
53