A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
ETA: It would seem that rationality quotes are no longer desired. After several days this thread stands voted into the negatives. Wolud whoever chose to to downvote this below 0 would care to express their disapproval of the regular quotes tradition more explicitly? Or perhaps they may like to browse around for some alternative posts that they could downvote instead of this one? Or, since we're in the business of quotation, they could "come on if they think they're hard enough!"
Which are you claiming: a) that I don't understand the quote, or b) that my rough translation is unclear?
Are you perhaps supposing that "rough" and "clear" are antonyms?
I think the translation is clear enough; what makes it "rough" is that a perfect translation would feel like it was a literal translation, all the while keeping the exact nuance of the original. If you will, it is the fact of its being a translation which makes it rough.
For more on the subtleties of translation, I'll direct you to Hofstadter's excellent Le Ton Beau de Marot.