Complexity Of Thought Quotes & Sayings

The utility of a language as a tool of thought increases with the range of topics it can treat, but decreases with the amount of vocabulary and the complexity of grammatical rules which the user must keep in mind. Economy of notation is therefore important. — Kenneth E. Iverson

Office reformers are pulled in two directions. They either follow Frederick Taylor (the father of scientific management) and the successive waves of management scientists who thought that with enough overhead cameras, spreadsheets, computing power, and analysis, they could "solve" the organization and its problems. Or they follow the dreamers of the 1970s and '80s, who, inspired by the cybernetic-counterculture movement, thought that by getting rid of that same organizational infrastructure, they could free workers to reach their full potential by embracing chaos, complexity, new technology, or all three. — Ray Fisman

If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a machine that has consciousness. And if that happens, that is a road to planetary disaster because everything we've thought about ourselves, since the Bronze Age, the Bible, all of that will be gone. — E.L. Doctorow

The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations. — B.F. Skinner

I put my clothing into the refrigerator and the foods into my wardrobe; am I in love? — Munia Khan

Personally, I am always more impressed by simplicity, clarity; it is the mark of a writer who knows his subject well and is secure enough not to 'lay it on' in the telling. Aim for complexity of thought, not expression. — Noah Lukeman

This approach to voice is designed to liberate the natural voice and thereby develop a vocal technique that serves the freedom of human expression. The basic assumption of the work is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two- to four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood, and subtlety of thought he or she experiences. — Kristin Linklater

Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems. — Nicolas Gomez Davila

The tape measures and weighing scales of the Victorian brain scientists have been supplanted by powerful neuroimaging technologies, but there is still a lesson to be learned from historical examples such as these. State-of-the-art brain scanners offer us unprecedented information about the structure and working of the brain. But don't forget that, once, wrapping a tape measure around the head was considered modern and sophisticated, and it's important not to fall into the same old traps. As we'll see in later chapters, although certain popular commentators make it seem effortlessly easy, the sheer complexity of the brain makes interpreting and understanding the meaning of any sex differences we find in the brain a very difficult task. But the first, and perhaps surprising, issue in sex differences research is that of knowing which differences are real and which, like the intially promising cephalic index, are flukes or spurious. — Cordelia Fine

Often the idea of survival is mentioned in relation to capitalism, as in the phrase 'economic survival' or the thought 'I need to earn money to survive.' However, in our endeavour we hoped to sever survival from economy, striving for a purer form of modernized surviving. Our fight would be a fight for survival and the fighting itself would be our life, not in the sense of employment but in the sense of a full reality with all of the inherent risk, complexity and completion that living implies. — Jacob Wren

Finally, I had held up examples of Goldhagen's inflammatory language and suggested that he had missed the essence of what Primo Levi once called the 'grey zone' of human affairs, described by the historian Christopher Browning as that foggy universe of mixed motives, conflicting emotions, personal priorities, reluctant choices, opportunism and accomodation, all wedded, when convenient, to self-deception and denial. I thought that by marshalling his research into an overly narrow narrative, painted without nuance in black and white, the author had missed the human complexity and the ordinariness of racism. — Erna Paris

As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be the simplicity of good versus evil, but good versus fools who think they are good. — Criss Jami

As the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great effort, that could at first only be understood by men capable of profound thought, are soon developed and proved by methods that are not beyond the reach of common intelligence. The strength and the limits of man — Nicolas De Caritat, Marquis De Condorcet

One of the reasons that most literary artists are contemptuous of Sigmund Freud - whose thought Vladimir Nabokov once characterized as no more than private parts covered up by Greek myths - is that his extreme determinism is felt to be immensely untrue to the rich complexity of life, with its twists and turns and manifold surprises. — Joseph Epstein

These include the beliefs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts. — Neil Postman

To be human is to be in the tense condition of a death-foreseeing, consciously libidinous animal. No other earthly creature suffers such a capacity for thought, such a complexity of envisioned but frustrated possibilities, such a troubling ability to question the tribal and biological imperatives. — John Updike

In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all. — Susan Sontag

It is difficult to imagine this kind of a new world because our present world is so different. On the whole, our life is too complex, our scholarship too serious, our philosophy too somber, and our thoughts too involved. This seriousness and this involved complexity of our thought and scholarship make the present world such an unhappy one today. — Lin Yutang

The complexity of language, he thought to himself, lies not in its subject matter but in our knotted understanding. — Alexander Theroux

Another way to be awakened by the beauty and complexity of the word is to get a dog. Small Things like a plant that I had passed a thousand time and never given a second thought to. But the dog is curious. And the dog stops and wants to smell this and smell that. And the dog makes you look and focus and take the time. — Dean Koontz

Bilderberg's modus operandi reinforced in his mind the complexity of the global hierarchy. He didn't know if Omega controlled the Bilderberg Group or vice versa, but the situation reminded him that no matter how much anyone thought they knew about the New World Order elite, there were always higher levels in the plethora of secret societies and shadow organizations that ruled the planet. — James Morcan

..humans love complexity of thought. This they pursue on the totally baseless assumption that complexity indicates profundity or truth. — Walter Ralston Martin

Where do you get your ideas?' people are always asking authors they admire, which I've always thought was another way of asking, 'How did you get my ideas, which I didn't know I had until you put words to them?' We are known, appreciated, even cherished by our favorite writers; every word of our favorite books seems to have been written for us. Within their sentences and paragraphs, those writers are forever available, forever patient, including us in their compassionate recognition of the impossible, exhausting complexity of being human (those "many thousand" selves), never ignoring us or abandoning us or finding us dull. It's you, they whisper, as we turn their pages, you are the one I've been waiting to tell everything to. — Suzanne Berne

The structures were austere and simple, until one looked at them and realized what work, what complexity of method, what tension of thought had achieved the simplicity. — Ayn Rand

Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul. — Emma Goldman

Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently nonexistent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward toward the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording, he assumed. "I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. "A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called ... the Earth. — Douglas Adams

Piaget- ... A stage then, we may say, is an integrated set of operational structures that constitute the thought processes of a person at a given time. Development involves the transformation of such " structures of the whole" in the direction of greater internal differentiation, complexity, flexibility and stability. A stage represents a kind of balanced relationship between a knowing subject and his or her environment. In this balanced or equilibrated position the person assimilates what is to be "known" in the environment into her or his existing structures of thought. When a novelty or challenge emerges that cannot be assimilated into the present structures of knowing then, if possible, the person accommmodates, that is , generates new structures of knowing. A stage transition has occured when enough accommodation has been undertaken to require ( and make possible) a transformation in the operational pattern of the structural whole of intellectual operations. — James W. Fowler

The more you watch users carefully and listen to them articulate their intentions, motivations, and thought processes, the more you realize that their individual reactions to Web pages are based on so many variables that attempts to describe users in terms of one-dimensional likes and dislikes are futile and counter-productive. Good design, on the other hand, takes this complexity into account. — Steve Krug

A smudge on the wall is an object of limitless fascination, multiplying in size, complexity, color. But more than that, one sees every relationship it has to the rest of the universe; it possesses, therefore, an endless variety of meanings, and one proceeds to entertain every possible thought there is to think about it. And — Oliver Sacks

I mean, if you have any idea of any kind of complexity or immensity or destiny, of general order, you're put in a position of nothingness. And I think this is true. I don't think I'm anything; I never have thought that. Whatever it is that activates it is a certain kind of energy that goes on. But the effect is ridiculous; it's absurd."
--Lincoln Kirstein in "The New Yorker — Lincoln Kirstein

The waters of her emotions ran deep, and he was only privy to the splashes on the surface. — Travis Luedke

They're on a cusp; a highly heterogeneous but highly connected
and stressedly connected
civilization. I'm not sure that one approach could encompass the needs of their different systems. The particular stage of communication they're at, combining rapidity and selectivity, usually with something added to the signal and almost always with something missed out, means that what passes for truth often has to travel at the speed of failing memories, changing attitudes, and new generations. Even when this form of handicap is recognized all they ever try to do, as a rule, is codify it, tidy it up. Their attempts of filter become part of the noise, and they seem unable to bring any more thought to bear on the matter than that which leads them to try and simplify what can only be understood by coming to terms with its complexity. — Iain M. Banks

I still have those childish moments when I wish with all my heart that I could wake up and find it's all been a dream. I really have thought that. I have felt-stronger than grief, stronger than anger, stronger than despair-the profound desire to return to the netherworld of the safer past. There are still flashes of unexpected sadness, the pauses that last longer than they used to. The desire for retribution, the fear of retribution. Like a death in the family, like a personal tragedy, an event like this lays bare the complexity of our worlds, internal and external. — David Levithan

One of the more radical concepts in this philosophy is that God is only Mind. Anything we experience is an idea in the Mind of God, and since only Mind is real, anything material, physical, corporeal, etc. must be an illusion, only an idea. The entire physical world with all of its complexity is just an illusory thought, and if we believe something is solid, permanent, or objective, we are deluding ourselves. In this philosophy everything happens in our minds, and any change we want to see must take place in our minds. — Edwin Navarro

Matter would have the universe a uniform dispersion, motionless, complete. Spirit would have an earth, a heaven and a hell, whirl and conflict, an incandescent sun to drive away the dark, to illuminate good and evil, would have thought, memory, desire, would build a stairway of forms increasing in complexity, inclusiveness, to a heaven ever receding above, changing always in configuration, becoming when reached but the way to more distant heavens, the last ... but there is no last, for spirit tends upward without end, wanders, spirals, dips, but tends ever upward, ruthlessly using lower forms to create higher forms, moving toward ever greater inwardness, consciousness, spontaneity, to an ever greater freedom. — Allen Wheelis

All sex is a form of longing even as it happens. Because it happens against the crush of time. Because the surface of the act is public, a cross-grain of fear and ruin. She wanted her body to remain a secret of the past, untouched by complexity and regret. She was superstitious about talking to doctors in detail. She thought they would take her body over, name all the damaged parts, speak all the awful words. She lay for a long time with her eyes closed, trying to drift into sleep. Then she rubbed the cat's fur and felt her childhood there. It was complete in a touch, everything intact, carried out of old lost houses and fields and summer days into the river of her hand. — Don DeLillo

We have one mind, and it contains both thought and feeling. Passion and reason combine as one in our mind. Only when we are at war with ourselves do they diverge, but this is pathology not a healthy state. They are both parts of the whole, each a subsystem embedded in an integrated, larger system. There is nothing more human than our reason and our emotions. We are probably the most emotional creature on the earth as a result of the complexity and subtlety of our thought, our mind's and body's role in adaptation, and our dependency on other people, all of which are relevant to survival and how we flourish as individuals and a species. — Richard S. Lazarus

By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought ... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence. — George Santayana

Cubism is not a manner but an aesthetic, and even a state of mind; it is therefore inevitably connected with every manifestation of contemporary thought. It is possible to invent a technique or a manner independently, but one cannot invent the whole complexity of a state of mind. — Juan Gris

There is a race between the increasing complexity of the systems we build and our ability to develop intellectual tools for understanding their complexity. If the race is won by our tools, then systems will eventually become easier to use and more reliable. If not, they will continue to become harder to use and less reliable for all but a relatively small set of common tasks. Given how hard thinking is, if those intellectual tools are to succeed, they will have to substitute calculation for thought. — Leslie Lamport

I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

We are not 'censored' in the traditional way in the United States: writers are not beaten or killed because of their words, and no Ministry of Truth enforces an official version of what can be printed and thought. But in this culture of images, we are censoring ourselves. That may be more insidious and long-lasting. What I mean is that we disparage long-term complexity, and extol superficiality. We ignore reading, and lavish time on images. To read, in my mind, is to consider and to think. To see an image is to react. What happens when we start believing the world and what is important in it are only these reactions and prejudices? What have you become when the most expected of you is simply to press a 'Like' button? What kind of gulag is it when its inhabitants are too stupid to understand they are its prisoners? — Sergio Troncoso

Anthropology has reached that point of development where the careful investigation of facts shakes our firm belief in the far-reaching theories that have been built up. The complexity of each phenomenon dawns on our minds, and makes us desirous of proceeding more cautiously. Heretofore we have seen the features common to all human thought — Franz Boas

He thought about explaining math's beauty to her, the elegance of an equation, the simplicity within the complexity. The thrill of touching truth and knowing it as ancient and unassailable, as permanent and profound. — Katie Kennedy

Complexity Thinking is best thought of as a way of continually generating multiple perspectives on issues. — Pearl Zhu

Everything is complex and everything is simple. The rose has no why attached to it, it blooms because it blooms, how no thought of itself, or desire to be seen. What could be more complicated than a rose for someone who wants to understand it? What could be simpler for someone who wants nothing? The complexity of thinking, the simplicity of beholding. — Andre Comte-Sponville

I think from age 13, 14, 15, I thought, yes, this rich studio produced music is the future, but it can't be the future to go run away into the recording studio. How can we take that kind of complexity and richness and make it possible for people to touch it and play it live. That's what hyperinstruments are. — Tod Machover

This may be the time to address a problem that afflicts even experienced researchers and at some point will probably afflict you. As you shuffle through hundreds of notes and a dozen lines of thought, you start feeling that you're not just spinning your wheels but spiraling down into a black hole of confusion, paralyzed by what seems to be an increasingly complex and ultimately unmanageable task. The bad news is that there's no sure way to avoid such moments. The good news is that most of us have them and they usually pass. Yours will too if you keep moving along, following your plan, taking on small and manageable tasks instead of trying to confront the complexity of the whole project. It's another reason to start early, to break a big project into its smallest steps, and to set achievable deadlines, — Kate L. Turabian