Quotes & Sayings About Deutsch

From the least parochial perspectives available to us, people are the most significant entities in the cosmic scheme of things. They are not 'supported' by their environments, but support themselves by creating knowledge. Once they have suitable knowledge (essentially, the knowledge of the Enlightenment), they are capable of sparking unlimited further progress. — David Deutsch

History
Coming too close
Is monstrous, like a doll
That is alive and bigger than the child
Who tries to hold it. — Babette Deutsch

Steve Grand is the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far, and his first book, Creation: Life and How to Make It, is as interesting as you would expect. But he illuminates more than just the properties of life: his originality extends to matter itself and the very nature of reality. Not since David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality have I encountered such a compelling invitation to think everything out afresh, from the bottom up. — Richard Dawkins

That outgrowth of arrogance comes at a price: some people don't like is. I take responsibility for that. — Donny Deutsch

David Deutsch, in The Fabric of Reality, embraces the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum theory, — Richard Dawkins

The Enlightenment (The beginning of) a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority. — David Deutsch

Consider also the revolutionary utopians, who typically achieve only destruction and stagnation. Though they are blind optimists, what defines them as utopians is their pessimism that their supposed utopia, or their violent proposals for achieving and entrenching it, could ever be improved upon. Additionally, — David Deutsch

mechanical reinterpretations of human affairs not only lack explanatory power, they are morally wrong as well, for in effect they deny the humanity of the participants, casting them and their ideas merely as side effects of the landscape. Diamond — David Deutsch

Perhaps a more practical way of stressing the same truth would be to frame the growth of knowledge (all knowledge, not only scientific) as a continual transition from problems to better problems, rather than from problems to solutions or from theories to better theories. This — David Deutsch

If it turns out that all this time we have merely been studying the programming of a cosmic planetarium, then that would merely mean that we have been studying a smaller portion of reality than we thought. So what? Such things have happened many times in the history of science, as our horizons have expanded beyond the Earth to include the solar system, our Galaxy, other galaxies, clusters of galaxies and so on, and, of course, parallel universes. — David Deutsch

I appear wild on the outside, but I'm a conservative businessman. — Donny Deutsch

Truth lies at the confluence of independent streams of evidence. — Karl Deutsch

It is interesting to note that in every phase of life feminine masochism finds some form of expression. — Helene Deutsch

Failure is not an option on this one. — Donny Deutsch

Every problem that is interesting is also soluble. — David Deutsch

For many people traveling can have deep psychological meaning. — Helene Deutsch

Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age. — Babette Deutsch

Adolescence is the period of the decisive last battle fought before maturity. The ego must achieve independence, the old emotional ties must be cast off, the new ones created. — Helene Deutsch

If two programs respond in the same way to every possible action by the user, then they render the same environment; if they would respond perceptibly differently to even one possible action, they render different environments. — David Deutsch

All the best human impulses can be traced back to adolescence. — Helene Deutsch

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success. — Babette Deutsch

The very fact that the youthful soul feels insecure strengthens its active aspiration to master its insecurity. — Helene Deutsch

The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy, but the ones that contain the deepest explanations. — David Deutsch

I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it. — David Deutsch

Sparta has no philosophers. That's because the job of a philosopher is to understand things better, which is a form of change, so they don't want it. Another difference: they don't honour living poets, only dead ones. Why? Because dead poets don't write anything new, but live ones do. A third difference: their education system is insanely harsh; ours is famously lax. Why? Because they don't want their kids to dare to question anything, so that they won't ever think of changing anything. How — David Deutsch

The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty. — David Deutsch

I chop and change between what is called 'work' and what is called 'recreation.' There are no discontinuities in my day. I only play tennis with people I find interesting. — David Deutsch

Whenever a wide range of variant theories can account equally well for the phenomenon they are trying to explain, there is no reason to prefer one of them over the others, so advocating a particular one in preference to the others is irrational. — David Deutsch

This inductively justifies the conclusion that induction cannot justify any conclusions. — David Deutsch

By adapting and adjusting to randomness, you shape but do not control your endpoint. — Bob Deutsch

That person is lonely who has no one for whom he or she is Number One. — Helene Deutsch

Deutsch and her colleagues, in their 2006 paper, suggested that their work not only has "implications for the issues of modularity in the processing of speech and music ... [but] of the evolutionary origin" of both. In particular, they see absolute pitch, whatever its subsequent vicissitudes, as having been crucial to the origins of both speech and music. In his book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body, Steven Mithen takes this idea further, suggesting that music and language have a common origin, and that a sort of combined protomusic-cum-protolanguage was characteristic of the Neanderthal mind. — Oliver Sacks

If the person who runs a company has a belief system and everything he does stays fairly truly to that system, it will attract like-minded people who buy into it and then keeps selling itself in concentric circles. — Donny Deutsch

The most important application of quantum computing in the future is likely to be a computer simulation of quantum systems, because that's an application where we know for sure that quantum systems in general cannot be efficiently simulated on a classical computer. — David Deutsch

The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical considerations. It is the explanation, the only one that is tenable, of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality. — David Deutsch

To me, it's always what's next and I think that's what drives most very successful people. It's never about the money. I mean that's a way of keeping score. It's about achievement and it's about winning a game and it's about upping the ante. — Donny Deutsch

The passion, the competitiveness, the swinging for the fences, it adds up. — Donny Deutsch

You know you're doing what you love when Sunday nights feel the same as Friday nights ... — Donny Deutsch

Who, except the poets, reads poetry? — Babette Deutsch

A good ad is one simple idea, with humanity in it, that connects with consumers, that represents the value system of a company and then can connect it with the consumer. We always say a brand is set of shared values. So if you can simply demonstrate your value system as a brand, so that a consumer could say, "Ah, our values line up. I vote for you, brand!" that's a good ad. — Donny Deutsch

The main fighter for the DSP [Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei or German Socialist Party], as I have said, was Julius Streicher, then a teacher in Nuremberg. At first he, too, had a holy conviction of the mission and the future of his movement. — Adolf Hitler

I am not one of these people who spend a ton of time in front on my computer; I see it as very utilitarian. — Donny Deutsch

Any serious analysis of Marxism must begin with the controversy over whether he is a humanist champion of free will or a determinist. Because Marxian writings on the subject often are so contradictory, it is impossible to know for sure. — Kenneth Deutsch

The embattled gates to equal rights indeed opened up for modern women, but I sometimes think to myself; that is not what I meant by freedom, it is only social progress. — Helene Deutsch

Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow. — David Deutsch

The most general way of stating the central assertion of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is that a population of replicators subject to variation (for instance by imperfect copying) will be taken over by those variants that are better than their rivals at causing themselves to be replicated. This — David Deutsch

[a] heavy sense of guilt [is] the most potent factor in the whole psychologic picture of motherliness. — Helene Deutsch

Science is objective. And in my view we cannot take any experimental results seriously except in the light of good explanations of them. — David Deutsch

The failure-dichotomy principle: failure is good. Failure is not an option. Balance those in your brain. — Donny Deutsch

Power is the ability to afford not to learn. — Karl Deutsch

Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things. — David Deutsch

I don't think it would be a good idea for scientists to have more political power. Scientists as a group are more inclined to try to derive an ought from an is, than the population at large. — David Deutsch

If you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite, and the finite is parochial ... the best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat. — David Deutsch

No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance. — David Deutsch

So the professor takes the student's point seriously, and responds with a concise but adequate argument in defence of the disputed equation. The professor tries hard to show no sign of being irritated by criticism from so lowly a source. Most of the questions from the floor will have the form of criticisms which, if valid, would diminish or destroy the professor's life's work. But bringing vigorous and diverse criticism to bear on accepted truths is one of the very purposes of the seminar. Everyone takes it for granted that the truth is not obvious, and that the obvious need not be true; that ideas are to be accepted or rejected according to their content and not their origin; that the greatest minds can easily make mistakes; and that the most trivial-seeming objection may be the key to a great new discovery. — David Deutsch

To iterate is human, to recurse divine. — L Peter Deutsch

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests. — David Deutsch

Crimes of the century differ from the garden variety of murders. They involve wealth, celebrity and powerful attorneys, and live on for decades after the verdict has been rendered. — Armand Deutsch

The key to success is not purely who's the smartest, who's the best, but also who can say with conviction, "I deserve it." The entire concept is wrapped up in one phrase: "Why not me? — Donny Deutsch

Trying to rely on the sheer good luck of avoiding bad outcomes indefinitely would simply guarantee that we would eventually fail without the means of recovering. — David Deutsch

We deserve what we earn. Anything more than that is wrong. — Barry Deutsch

War, to be abolished, must be understood. To be understood, it must be studied." Karl Deutsch - preface of A Study of War by Quincy Wright. Added corollary by KMV: To abolish what is not understood is both arrogant and ignorant. — Karl Deutsch

Every great business leader I've ever met, in addition to being very smart, very driven, they have this, 'Why not me? Screw it, I deserve it, let's go.' And if you don't have that, you can't achieve greatness. — Donny Deutsch

The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so. — Babette Deutsch

After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth. — Helene Deutsch

My mother once told me, when you have to make a decision, imagine the person you want to become someday. Ask yourself, what would that person do? — Barry Deutsch

Every business is about understanding people. Which people you have to get through. Which people you have to embrace. Which people you have to jump over. Which people you have to push out of the way. That's the game. — Donny Deutsch

And here's what management is: motivating people and putting them in places where they can succeed. — Donny Deutsch

Because we are universal explainers, we are not simply obeying our genes. For — David Deutsch

And to this world, to this scene of tormented and agonised beings, who only continue to exist by devouring each other, in which, therefore, every ravenous beast is the living grave of thousands of others, and its self-maintenance is a chain of painful deaths; and in which the capacity for feeling pain increases with knowledge, and therefore reaches its highest degree in man, a degree which is the higher the more intelligent the man is; to this world it has been sought to apply the system of optimism, and demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The absurdity is glaring. — Arthur Schopenhauer

It is a mistake to conceive of choice and decision-making as a process of selecting from existing options according to a fixed formula. That omits the most important element of decision-making, namely the creation of new options. Good — David Deutsch

If we can't program it, we can't understand it. — David Deutsch

Discovering a new explanation is inherently an act of creativity. — David Deutsch

Bad philosophy before the Enlightenment was typically of the because-I-say-so variety. When the Enlightenment liberated philosophy and science, they both began to make progress, and increasingly there was good philosophy. But, paradoxically, bad philosophy became worse. — David Deutsch

It's a very simple thing on the make-or-break decision, it's the guy, and that's what separates the great leaders and great successes, and if you don't listen to it, you don't have it, you're never gonna get it, 'cause it's never gonna come from someplace else. — Donny Deutsch

The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche. — David Deutsch

I don't have a favorite medium; I was brought up on TV. so I am clearly of the TV generation, but it depends on what you are trying to sell; sometimes a fully integrated solution, sometimes a pure Internet solution, sometimes a pure billboard solution. — Donny Deutsch

Because pessimism needs to counter that argument in order to be at all persuasive, a recurring theme in pessimistic theories throughout history has been that an exceptionally dangerous moment is imminent. — David Deutsch

If you can't embrace failure, or the possibility of failure, or the tremendous fear of failure, you can't be wildly successful. — Donny Deutsch

I've always managed by walking around. Any CEO or leader who spends the majority of his time in his office is not doing his job. — Donny Deutsch

My philosophy is to always find the smartest people you can. Hire people smarter than you. — Donny Deutsch

A Nation ... is a group of persons united by a common error about their ancestry, and a common dislike of their neighbors — Karl Deutsch

I am convinced that the reason so many fans leave Dodger Stadium after the seventh inning is that they become bored. — Armand Deutsch

I would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective. — Mark Twain

Like every other destruction of optimism, whether in a whole civilisation or in a single individual, these must have been unspeakable catastrophes for those who had dared to expect progress. But we should feel more than sympathy for those people. We should take it personally. For if any of those earlier experiments in optimism had succeeded, our species would be exploring the stars by now, and you and I would be immortal. — David Deutsch

The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists. — David Deutsch

Time travel may be achieved one day, or it may not. But if it is, it should not require any fundamental change in world-view, at least for those who broadly share the world view I am presenting in this book. — David Deutsch

Where we have good, testable explanations, they then have to be tested, and we drop the ones that fail the tests. — David Deutsch

Copenhagen interpretation Niels Bohr's combination of instrumentalism, anthropocentrism and studied ambiguity, used to avoid understanding quantum theory as being about reality. — David Deutsch

How to sustain the miracle
Of being, that like a muted bell,
Or like some ocean-breathing shell,
Quivers, intense and still? — Babette Deutsch

Changes in my personal life are nerve-racking for me. — Donny Deutsch

When I looked into the mechanics of being a businessman, I found it wasn't rocket science. — Donny Deutsch

The difference between Pound and Whitman is not between the democrat who in deep distress could look hopefully toward the future and the fascist madly in love with the past. It is that between the woodsman and the woodcarver. It is that between the mystic harking back to his vision and the artist whose first allegiance is to his craft, and so to the reality it presents. — Babette Deutsch

It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. — David Deutsch

All observations point to the fact that the intellectual woman is masculinized; in her, warm, intuitive knowledge has yielded to cold unproductive thinking. — Helene Deutsch

There is no end to grief. Nor no end to poetry. — Babette Deutsch

The only thing I hated about the agency business was a lot of business travel. It was the only part of my job that I did not like. I found it very tedious and wearing. — Donny Deutsch

Base metals can be transmuted into gold by stars, and by intelligent beings who understand the processes that power stars, but by nothing else in the universe. — David Deutsch

I've built my success on the idea that a win for me involves a win for everyone around me. — Donny Deutsch

Yet, over time, the conclusions that science has drawn have become ever truer to reality. — David Deutsch