#singular

Imagine, Bishop, that you have a beloved cat, but that your cat is not with you. If you close your eyes and further imagine you are petting your cat, the same neurons in your brains are activated as if you were petting the actual cat. Our minds may know the difference between its models and reality itself, but it prefers its models. So much so that we apprehend reality through our models, rather than directly via the sense. When I'm speaking to you, I have a little bishop in my head, and though I speak out load, I'm speaking to my little bishop. When you answer, I can only perceive you through my model of you. Mentars also make models, but they don't apprehend reality through them. They end up, not with little people in their minds, but with highly complex rule sets. They relate to their models in the same way we relate to weather models, as things to consult, but not to conflate with external reality. ↗

— David Marusek

#perception #reality #singularity #imagination

Seduction is always more singular and sublime than sex and it commands the higher price. ↗

— Jean Baudrillard

#commands #higher #more #price #seduction

But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will. ↗

— Vernor Vinge

#singularity #technological #will

I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. ↗

— Vernor Vinge

#argued #cannot #coming #competitiveness #consequence

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. ↗

— Alfred North Whitehead

#bible #humor #literature #most #singular

I believe in singularity in relationships because you've got to have trust on both sides. ↗

— Thomas Haden Church

#believe #both #both sides #got #i

If you asked somebody, 'what do you wish for in life?' they wouldn't say 'happiness.' I would have answered 'excitement, knowledge,' God knows - I mean, many, many different things, but certainly not 'happiness'. It seemed like a foreign concept to wish for something that specific and that singular. ↗

— Connie Nielsen

#asked #certainly #concept #different #different things

Losing a child is probably the singular most horrible thing. ↗

— Laura Schlessinger

#horrible #losing #most #probably #singular

A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity. ↗

— Jeremy Taylor

#apple #celibate #confined #dies #dwells

Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance. ↗

— James C. Maxwell

#account #being #certain #every #existence