rhollerith_dot_com comments on Rationality Quotes: April 2011 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: benelliott 04 April 2011 09:55AM

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Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 07 April 2011 04:07:50PM *  9 points [-]

To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set abut it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are continually being thrust upon them.

--George Spencer Brown in The Laws of Form, 1969.