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matabele comments on Rationality Quotes July 2012 - Less Wrong
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-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That sounds incredibly deep. (By which I mean it is bullshit.)
For some reason, this thread reminds me of this Simpsons quote:
"The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth?"
Upvoted for correct usage of a technical term. :-)
My favourite technical term out of all the technical terms!
I think it is intended to mean "If you want to accomplish impractical things, work on practical subtasks."
I don't see what's wrong with that.
That's an excellent quote. Let's find an impressive external source who says that and quote them!
Or, failing that, pick an impressive external source and ask them to write back to you saying that, so you can subsequently quote it attributed to "Impressive Source (private communication)"
Excellent idea. I used to do this on certain assignments at times.
As a variant: Introduce some freeloader code in Watson to have it randomly blurt out quotes from a list of quotations sent to a specific email address each time it appears in public.
This gives you both the Impressive Source criterion and a public statement of the quote.
Not necessarily deep; a couple of concrete interpretations:
There is often much hidden wisdom in interpretation of aphorisms, which perhaps explains my preference for the poetic turn of phrase.
No, there are intentionally vague deep sounding comments to which wisdom can be associated. You've just given multiple meanings to the same words. Those other meanings may be useful but the words themselves are nonsense.
That pretty much describes any proposition. If you wish, substitute the word 'noise' for the word 'symbol, then the paragraph describes an utterance.
There is a good resource on semiotics here.
No it doesn't. Not all propositions are intentionally vague and deep sounding.
Were I inclined to substitute in 'noise' it would be as a contrast to 'signal'.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is an excellent quote and belongs at the top level.
(I downvoted it here because the point you are trying to make by replying with it is approximately backwards. An intended insult which would make more sense as a compliment.)
And there you have it: symbols (or strings of symbols) have different sense in different contexts.
One of the contexts in which I found this aphorism insightful, was in certain interpretations of quantum physics.