"A man wanted to know about mind, not in nature, but in his private, large computer. He asked it (no doubt in his best Fortran), "Do you compute that you will ever think like a human being?" The machine then set to work to analyze its own computational habits. Finally, the machine printed its answer on a piece of paper, as such machines do. The man ran to get the answer and found, neatly typed, the words: THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY."
— Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature
``Utility theory is simply a weirdly phrased form of growth rate optimization. It has nothing to do with psychology, it’s just evolution 101: “since the thing that grows fastest starts to dominate in evolution, everything we observe today is quite good at maximizing growth.”
Ole Peter
"The two main points of this book ----The Analects of Confucious--- are: enjoy the ancients and earnestly seek your knowledge there; and, new knowledge is acquired by re-invigorating ancient wisdom."
Cheng Man Ch'ing
“Love of kindness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by foolishness.
Love of knowledge, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by loose speculation.
Love of honesty, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by harmful candor.
Love of straightforwardness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by misdirected judgment.
Love of daring without a love to learn, finds itself obscure by insubordination.
And love for strength of character, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by intractability.”
The Analects of Confucious
“Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
''Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself — only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.''
Gurdjieff
"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact."
C. Darwin
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
George E.P. Box
"No statistical model is "true" or "false," "right" or "wrong"; the models just have varying performance, which can be assessed."
Rissanen
"Every writer creates his own precursors."
Borges
" We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotele
``The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.''
Aristotele
" Disagreement among investors does not in itself imply market inefficiency unless there are investors who can consistently make better evaluation of available information ... [than is] ... implicit in market prices.”
Eugene Fama
"We cannot accept want-satisfaction as a final criterion of value because we do not in fact regard our wants as final; instead of resting in the view that there is no disputing about tastes, we dispute about them more than anything else; our most difficult problem in valuation is the evaluation of our wants themselves and our most troublesome want is the desire for wants of the " right " kind."
F. H. Knight
"An examination of the ethics of the economic system must consider the question of the kind of wants which it tends to generate or nourish as well as its treatment of wants as they exist at any given time .... The competitive system, viewed simply as a want-satisfying mechanism, falls far short of our highest ideals .... untrammeled individualism would probably tend to lower standards progressively rather than to raise them. " Giving the public what it wants" usually means corrupting popular taste."
F. H. Knight
"If we were not ignorant, there would be no probability, there would be room for nothing but certainty. But our ignorance can not be absolute, for then there would no longer be any probability at all, since a little light is necessary to attain even this uncertain science. Thus the problems of probability may be classed according to the greater or less depth of this ignorance."
Poincare'
"Each of us finds lucidity only in those ideas which are in the same state of confusion as his own."
Marcel Prust.
"Fashion is the great governor of this world; it presides not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind; indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at others universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion."
Henry Fieldin
"Even now, Charlie [Munger] and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.'."
Warren Buffet.
"What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact."
Warren Buffet.
“Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.”
John Maynard Keynes
“The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.”
John Maynard Keynes
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
John Maynard Keynes
“When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.”
John Maynard Keynes
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”
John Maynard Keynes
“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”
John Maynard Keynes
“When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.”
John Maynard Keynes
"Do not confuse brain with a bull market"
Humphrey Neill.
''You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that!''
John von Neumann.
"Do not EVER bluff a bad player: it takes an idiot to bluff a man who you know is going to call you."
Poker Bible.
"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle--they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. "
Alfred North Whitehead.
"Following G.K. Chesterton, we caution against using statistics as a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination."
Richard A.Epstein.
''If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.''
Albert Einstein.
''Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.''
Albert Einstein.
''Intellectual solve problems, geniuses prevent them.”
Albert Einstein.
''We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.''
Albert Einstein.
“For difficult problems, it is good to have 10 experts in the same room, but it is far better to have 10 experts in the same head.''
John von Neumann.
''A plurality should only be postulated if there is some good reason, experience, or infallible authority for it.''
William of Ockham.
"Keep all models that are consistent with the data"
Epicurus principle of multiple explanation.
'' Naploeon: How is that, although you say so much about the Universe, you say nothing about its Creator?
Laplace: No, Sire, I had no need for that hypothesis.
Lagrange: Ah, but it is such a good hypothesis: it explains so many things!
Laplace: Indeed, Sire, Monsieur Laplace has, with his usual sagacity, put his finger on the precise difficulty with the hypothesis: it explains everything, but predict nothing.''
Conversation between Laplace and Lagrange mediated by Napoleon.
''Ideas matter. Approximate the solution, not the problem.''
Richard Sutton.
''It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.''
Niels Bohr.
“We never want to make the false assumption that the observed data actually were generated by a distribution of some kind, say Gaussian, and then go on to analyze the consequences and make further deductions. Our deductions may be entertaining but quite irrelevant to the task at hand, namely, to learn useful properties from the data.”
Jorma Rissanen.
''If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.''
Issac Newton
"For a men on earth, borrowing and lending is not only essential but should be increased to outlandish proportions. The fellow who is really practical is the fool who looks neither to the left nor the right, who gives without question and asks unblushingly. "
Henry Miller
"The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose one another."
Henry Miller
"Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes"
Oscar Wilde
"39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."
Luke 6:39-42.
"In expectation, anything that loves Black Swans will be present in the future. Anything that fears it will be eventually gone — to the extent of its concavity."
Nassim N. Taleb
— Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature
``Utility theory is simply a weirdly phrased form of growth rate optimization. It has nothing to do with psychology, it’s just evolution 101: “since the thing that grows fastest starts to dominate in evolution, everything we observe today is quite good at maximizing growth.”
Ole Peter
"The two main points of this book ----The Analects of Confucious--- are: enjoy the ancients and earnestly seek your knowledge there; and, new knowledge is acquired by re-invigorating ancient wisdom."
Cheng Man Ch'ing
“Love of kindness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by foolishness.
Love of knowledge, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by loose speculation.
Love of honesty, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by harmful candor.
Love of straightforwardness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by misdirected judgment.
Love of daring without a love to learn, finds itself obscure by insubordination.
And love for strength of character, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by intractability.”
The Analects of Confucious
“Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
''Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself — only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.''
Gurdjieff
"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact."
C. Darwin
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
George E.P. Box
"No statistical model is "true" or "false," "right" or "wrong"; the models just have varying performance, which can be assessed."
Rissanen
"Every writer creates his own precursors."
Borges
" We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotele
``The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.''
Aristotele
" Disagreement among investors does not in itself imply market inefficiency unless there are investors who can consistently make better evaluation of available information ... [than is] ... implicit in market prices.”
Eugene Fama
"We cannot accept want-satisfaction as a final criterion of value because we do not in fact regard our wants as final; instead of resting in the view that there is no disputing about tastes, we dispute about them more than anything else; our most difficult problem in valuation is the evaluation of our wants themselves and our most troublesome want is the desire for wants of the " right " kind."
F. H. Knight
"An examination of the ethics of the economic system must consider the question of the kind of wants which it tends to generate or nourish as well as its treatment of wants as they exist at any given time .... The competitive system, viewed simply as a want-satisfying mechanism, falls far short of our highest ideals .... untrammeled individualism would probably tend to lower standards progressively rather than to raise them. " Giving the public what it wants" usually means corrupting popular taste."
F. H. Knight
"If we were not ignorant, there would be no probability, there would be room for nothing but certainty. But our ignorance can not be absolute, for then there would no longer be any probability at all, since a little light is necessary to attain even this uncertain science. Thus the problems of probability may be classed according to the greater or less depth of this ignorance."
Poincare'
"Each of us finds lucidity only in those ideas which are in the same state of confusion as his own."
Marcel Prust.
"Fashion is the great governor of this world; it presides not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind; indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at others universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion."
Henry Fieldin
"Even now, Charlie [Munger] and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.'."
Warren Buffet.
"What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact."
Warren Buffet.
“Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.”
John Maynard Keynes
“The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.”
John Maynard Keynes
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
John Maynard Keynes
“When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.”
John Maynard Keynes
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”
John Maynard Keynes
“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”
John Maynard Keynes
“When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.”
John Maynard Keynes
"Do not confuse brain with a bull market"
Humphrey Neill.
''You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that!''
John von Neumann.
"Do not EVER bluff a bad player: it takes an idiot to bluff a man who you know is going to call you."
Poker Bible.
"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle--they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. "
Alfred North Whitehead.
"Following G.K. Chesterton, we caution against using statistics as a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination."
Richard A.Epstein.
''If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.''
Albert Einstein.
''Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.''
Albert Einstein.
''Intellectual solve problems, geniuses prevent them.”
Albert Einstein.
''We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.''
Albert Einstein.
“For difficult problems, it is good to have 10 experts in the same room, but it is far better to have 10 experts in the same head.''
John von Neumann.
''A plurality should only be postulated if there is some good reason, experience, or infallible authority for it.''
William of Ockham.
"Keep all models that are consistent with the data"
Epicurus principle of multiple explanation.
'' Naploeon: How is that, although you say so much about the Universe, you say nothing about its Creator?
Laplace: No, Sire, I had no need for that hypothesis.
Lagrange: Ah, but it is such a good hypothesis: it explains so many things!
Laplace: Indeed, Sire, Monsieur Laplace has, with his usual sagacity, put his finger on the precise difficulty with the hypothesis: it explains everything, but predict nothing.''
Conversation between Laplace and Lagrange mediated by Napoleon.
''Ideas matter. Approximate the solution, not the problem.''
Richard Sutton.
''It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.''
Niels Bohr.
“We never want to make the false assumption that the observed data actually were generated by a distribution of some kind, say Gaussian, and then go on to analyze the consequences and make further deductions. Our deductions may be entertaining but quite irrelevant to the task at hand, namely, to learn useful properties from the data.”
Jorma Rissanen.
''If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.''
Issac Newton
"For a men on earth, borrowing and lending is not only essential but should be increased to outlandish proportions. The fellow who is really practical is the fool who looks neither to the left nor the right, who gives without question and asks unblushingly. "
Henry Miller
"The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose one another."
Henry Miller
"Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes"
Oscar Wilde
"39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."
Luke 6:39-42.
"In expectation, anything that loves Black Swans will be present in the future. Anything that fears it will be eventually gone — to the extent of its concavity."
Nassim N. Taleb
