#cognition

The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself: and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object.... If by this inquiry into the nature of the understanding, I can discover the powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any degree proportionate; and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities. ↗

— John Locke

#epistemology #metacognition #art

Our metaphors for the operation of the brain are frequently drawn from the production line. We think of the brain as a glorified sausage machine, taking in information from the senses, processing it and regurgitating it in a different form, as thoughts or actions. The digital computer reinforces this idea because it is quite explicitly a machine that does to information what a sausage machine does to pork. Indeed, the brain was the original inspiration and metaphor for the development of the digital computer, and early computers were often described as 'giant brains'. Unfortunately, neuroscientists have sometimes turned this analogy on its head, and based their models of brain function on the workings of the digital computer (for example by assuming that memory is separate and distinct from processing, as it is in a computer). This makes the whole metaphor dangerously self-reinforcing. ↗

— Steve Grand

#cognition #cybernetics #metaphor #neuroscience #inspirational

Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses... on your powers, instead of your problems. ↗

— Paul J. Meyer

#concentrate #defeat #enter #every #giving

Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#been #contribution #get #get together #halved

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. ↗

— Theodore Isaac Rubin

#important #kindness #more #recognition #than

Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. (“Death Ship”) ↗

— Richard Matheson

#dying #precognition #death

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. ↗

— Friedrich von Hayek

#design

Because personally I think mattering is a piss-poor idea. I just want to fly under the radar, because when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that’s when you get shot down. The bigger a deal you are, the worse your life is. ↗

— John Green

#recognition #life

A sense of mission lost in ink's jagged outcrops. I was trying to tell myself what I must have known before in a form I wouldn't recognize at first. ↗

— Rae Armantrout

#recognition #writing #life

...reduction is precisely what a work of art opposes. Easy answers...annotations, arrows...an oudine of its design...very seriously mislead. ↗

— William H. Gass

#literary-criticism #the-recognitions #twentieth-century #art