Jacob Quotes (0-)

“What we really mean by free will... is the visualizing of alternatives and making a choice between them. ...the central problem of human consciousness depends on this ability to imagine.”

“The symbol is the tool which gives man his power, and it is the same tool whether the symbols are images or words, mathematical signs or mesons.”

“What we really mean by free will... is the visualizing of alternatives and making a choice between them. ...the central problem of human consciousness depends on this ability to imagine.”

“[T]he human reason discovers new relations between things not by deduction, but by that unpredictable blend of speculation and insight... induction, which—like other forms of imagination—cannot be formalized.”

“[At the sight of these two Jerusalems, the earthly and the heavenly, Jacob said]: 'The Jerusalem on earth is nothing, this is not the house that will be preserved for my children in all generations, but in truth that other house of God, that He builds with His own hands.'”

“If I were giving this lecture fifty years from now, the word "gravitation" would be as old-fashioned as the word "phlogiston" is to us. Relativity has certainly demoted gravitation as a real explanation, just as Priestley's and Lavoisier's analyses and decoding of chemical reactions destroyed the word "phlogiston."”

“Progress is the exploration of our own error. Evolution is a consolidation of what have always begun as errors. And errors are of two kinds: errors that turn out to be true and errors that turn out to be false (which are most of them). But they both have the same character of being an imaginative speculation. ...it seems to me terribly important to say this in an age in which most nonscientists are feeling a kind of loss of nerve. ...by the time science becomes a closed—that is, computerizable—project, it is not science anymore. It is not in the area of the exploration of errors.”

“Why do I require an hour to give this lecture when all I have to say really could go into roughly six sentences? Because I could not utter six sentences which are not so heavily charged with ambiguity that no one... would get the picture... Most human sentences are... aimed at getting rid of the ambiguity which you unfortunately left trailing in the last sentence. ...It is not possible to get rid of ambiguity in our statements, because that would press symbolism beyond its capabilities. And it is not possible to get rid of ambiguity because the number of responses that the brain could make never has a sharp edge because the thing is not a digital machine.”

“The first link in Bohme's theosophic train of thought is the unit which he designates as the Abyss where all as yet is in indifference. Here as yet there is no ground, cause, or basis, no centre, no principle, nothing defining or defined, because ground, cause or basis, can only appear when the different, the definite appears. Here there is neither light nor darkness, light nor fire, neither good nor evil; here there is neither height nor depth, great nor small, thick nor thin. Here is everything and nothing. For all is stillness, in which nothing actual stirs. In this stillness lies the whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, who have not yet come forth.”

“What happens when “speech” isn’t really speech? In 1966, four protesters burned their draft cards to protest the Vietnam War, breaking a 1965 federal law. They appealed to the Supreme Court, which, in a major victory for “symbolic speech,” declared that the First Amendment protected non-verbal expression, too. The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. O’Brien was not a victory for the protesters, however. State legislatures could make laws that limit expression as long as they do not target any particular belief. The Court decided that the law did not target Vietnam protesters, and as a result, the protesters’ convictions were upheld.”

“Now Gödel's proof, Russell's original paradox, all these things, all stem from one common root which is inherent in all symbolic languages, including the language we use. ...the problem which dogs all formal systems, the problem of self-reference; that is, the language can be used to refer to sentences in the language. Indeed, between 1900 and 1910 Russell tried to forbid this, to say you cannot do mathematics if you can do that, and so he invented the theory of types. Of course, no sooner had he invented it than it turned up you could not do mathematics at all if you obeyed the theory of types. So then he had to put in an axiom of reducibility, which allows a certain amount of self-reference. And by this time everyone was pretty bored.”

“Now Gödel's proof, Russell's original paradox, all these things, all stem from one common root which is inherent in all symbolic languages, including the language we use. ...the problem which dogs all formal systems, the problem of self-reference; that is, the language can be used to refer to sentences in the language. Indeed, between 1900 and 1910 Russell tried to forbid this, to say you cannot do mathematics if you can do that, and so he invented the theory of types. Of course, no sooner had he invented it than it turned up you could not do mathematics at all if you obeyed the theory of types. So then he had to put in an axiom of reducibility, which allows a certain amount of self-reference. And by this time everyone was pretty bored.”

“Jubilee serves the purpose of limiting the concentration of productive resources in the hands of the few.”

“Religion does not complement science but preempts and co-opts scientific discourse in support of supernaturalism.”

“"Have you heard this one, Psycho? How do a blonde's brain cells die? [... A] blonde's brain cells die alone."”

“A man must come to the practice, effectual performance, and fruitfulness in Christianity, otherwise the new birth is not yet manifest in him, nor the noble branch yet born; no tickling or soothing, comforting with promises or Scripture evidences, and boasting of a faith, doth avail any man at all, if the faith make him not a child conformable to God in essence and will, which faith bringeth forth divine fruit.”

“I had not only opportunity of seeing how different things have been made, but also manual work made me strong.”

“Mathematics is not a pompous activity, least of all in the hands of extraordinarily fast and penetrating minds like Johnny von Neumann.”

“Government is, and always has been, the greatest criminal threat to the peaceful members of society.”

“Einstein's manner was full of charm and bonhomie. He enjoyed a joke and had many a jibe at the Nazi Professors, one hundred of whom in a book had condemned his theory. "Were I wrong," he said, "one professor would have been quite enough." Also, in speaking of Nazis, he once said: "I thought I was a Physicist, I did not bother about being a Jew until Hitler made me conscious of it."”

“How is Obama's killing of Abdulrahman any different from Pinochet's murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt?  In the one case, a 16-year-old boy has had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong father.  In the other case, a man had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong philosophical beliefs.  Given that the Letelier and Moffitt killings were treated as murders, why shouldn't the Abdulraham killing be treated as murder too?”

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Lady Thatcher and the people of the UK during this difficult time.”

“Cheney and Rumsfeld were inveterate schemers whose cynicism about going to war was exceeded only by their ineptitude in conducting it.”

“The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.”

“And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”

“Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing”

“Jacob, my beloved son, whom my soul loveth, may God bless thee from above the firmament, and may He give thee all the blessing wherewith He blessed Adam, and Enoch, and Noah, and Shem, and all the things of which He told me, and all the things which He promised to give me may He cause to cleave to thee and to thy seed forever, according to the days of the heavens above the earth. And the spirit of Mastema shall not rule over thee or over thy seed, to turn thee from the Lord, who is thy God from henceforth and forever. And may the Lord God be a father to thee, and mayest thou be His first-born son, and may He be a father to thy people always. Go in peace, my son.”

“All food was lawful to the Children of Israel, before the Torah was revealed. -- except that which Israel forbade himself. Say Bring the Torah and read it, if you are truthful.”

“The next major figure in the Bible is Abraham, the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Abraham has a nephew, Lot, who settles in Sodom. Because the residents engage in anal sex and comparable sins, God immolates every man, woman, and child in a divine napalm attack. Lot’s wife, for the crime of turning around to look at the inferno, is put to death as well. Abraham undergoes a test of his moral values when God orders him to take his son Isaac to a mountaintop, tie him up, cut his throat, and burn his body as a gift to the Lord. Isaac is spared only because at the last moment an angel stays his father’s hand. For millennia readers have puzzled over why God insisted on this horrifying trial. One interpretation is that God intervened not because Abraham had passed the test but because he had failed it, but that is anachronistic: obedience to divine authority, not reverence for human life, was the cardinal virtue. Isaac’s son Jacob has a daughter, Dinah. Dinah is kidnapped and raped—apparently a customary form of courtship at the time, since the rapist’s family then offers to purchase her from her own family as a wife for the rapist. Dinah’s brothers explain that an important moral principle stands in the way of this transaction: the rapist is uncircumcised. So they make a counteroffer: if all the men in the rapist’s hometown cut off their foreskins, Dinah will be theirs. While the men are incapacitated with bleeding penises, the brothers invade the city, plunder and destroy it, massacre the men, and carry off the women and children. When Jacob worries that neighboring tribes may attack them in revenge, his sons explain that it was worth the risk: “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” Soon afterward they reiterate their commitment to family values by selling their brother Joseph into slavery.”