“The universe was infinite, and there were most likely an infinite number of universes. To sit on one tiny planet in an ocean of infinite infinities and believe you understood anything about the true nature of existence and reality was absurd.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind.” —James D. Watson, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Humanity seemed to have a singular ability to find destructive uses for any constructive technology. Invent the computer, and you could be certain someone would invent computer viruses and other ways to attack it. Invent the Internet, an unimaginable treasure trove of information, and you could bet it would be used as a recruiting tool for hate mongers and instantly turned into a venue for child pornographers, sexual predators, and scam artists. Humanity never failed to find a way to become its own worst enemy. “I”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“The purpose of consciousness—any consciousness—was to achieve infinite comprehension. It was as simple as that. If a God existed, humanity must strive to discover this God and help this deity become omniscient, not just in one infinity, but in an infinity of infinities. This was one possible purpose for her species. But her alter ego, using symbolic logic, had arrived at a possibility she considered much more likely: that humanity’s purpose, together with all life across all universes, was not to discover God—it was to become God. If a single human egg could possess consciousness at the instant of fertilization, how would it view itself? It couldn’t possibly predict or comprehend the multi-trillion-celled being it would ultimately become. The entirety of humanity could well be that single, fertilized cell, unaware that it would grow a trillion-fold more complex and eventually become God, perhaps had already become God, in a universe in which all pasts, presents, and futures existed side by side. Humanity was composed of separate individuals now, but an embryo at early stages was also nothing more than a ball of separate cells. But these separate cells would ultimately become connected in wondrous ways to create something unimaginably greater than themselves. And seen in this light, altruism and sociopathy were far from straightforward concepts, beyond even the complexities that Abraham Lincoln had revealed. Absolute altruism on one level could be absolute selfishness in disguise on another, and vice-versa. The cells making up the human body were selfless; gladly sacrificing themselves when necessary for the good of the organism. On the microscopic level they were being foolishly altruistic, foolishly suicidal, but on the macroscopic level they were being purely selfish—ensuring the survival of the body. And what happened when an individual cell became selfish and exhibited Nietzsche’s will to power? It became a cancer. The cell would break free of the restraints on its own division and become immortal—for a while—until its very immortality choked the entire organism to death, killing the selfish cell in the process.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“schizophrenia and had developed a split personality”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“This is classic data mining. You draw a conclusion and then mine the data retrospectively to find support for it. You invariably do.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“During times of scarcity at least, yes. This is one probable explanation for why most life on Earth, including ours, is programmed to die.” Desh’s”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Partially true. But a large part of aging is due to a form of planned obsolescence.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“If life could be reduced to the purely rational, to a solvable equation, there would be no mystery, no excitement. Life would become utterly predictable; a tedious movie that could never surprise.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“More than three hundred and two,” said Desh wryly. “One hundred billion,” said Kira emphatically. “One hundred billion! And on the order of one hundred trillion synaptic connections between them. Not to mention two million miles of axons. Electrical signals are constantly zipping along neuronal pathways like pinballs, creating thought and memory. The possible number of neuronal pathways that can be formed by the human brain are basically infinite. And a computer uses base two. A circuit can either be on or off; one or zero. But your brain is far more nuanced. The number of possible circuits your brain can use for calculation, or thought, or invention, puts the possible number available to computers to shame.” “Okay,” said Desh, nodding toward her”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“The only way to universally make problems easier to solve was to have better tools to solve them.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Without question, violence and brutality—and bloodlust—were intrinsic to human nature. Scratch any century throughout recorded history and staggering displays of cruelty came gushing out: the slaughter of helpless innocents on a massive scale, brutal wars, enslavements, tortures, mass rapes and murders, and other atrocities far too numerous to ignore. Hitler was just one example in a seemingly endless parade. Humanity could wrap itself in the cloak of civilization and pretend this side of its nature didn’t exist, but the hostility and savagery that drove the most dangerous predator on the planet to the top of the food chain was always seething, just below the surface.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“To sit on one tiny planet in an ocean of infinite infinities and believe you understood anything about the true nature of existence and reality was absurd.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“If life could be reduced to the purely rational, to a solvable equation, there would be no mystery, no excitement. Life would become utterly predictable; a tedious movie that could never surprise. The”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Smith in frustration. “If all she wanted was muscle, she could”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“It’s impossible to say. Normal motives don’t necessarily apply to psychopathic personalities. Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and cannibalized seventeen people, three of whose skulls were found in his refrigerator.” “That’s perfectly rational behavior,” said Desh sarcastically. “He just didn’t want them to spoil.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“If anything was universally accepted as the hallmark of humanity, it was the insatiable curiosity at the heart of the species. But would this insatiable curiosity cost them everything?”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Sometimes I think of myself as Frodo in the Lord of The Rings. In my case the ring’s power is that of almost inconceivable creativity and intellect. But like Frodo’s burden it is easily accessible, right there around my neck at all times, exerting its magnetic pull. The temptation to use it, especially when I’m desperately in need of some insight, is almost irresistible.” Desh”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Now that she had achieved a truly transcendent plane of thought she was sure of only one thing: she understood absolutely nothing! The universe was infinite, and there were most likely an infinite number of universes. To sit on one tiny planet in an ocean of infinite infinities and believe you understood anything about the true nature of existence and reality was absurd.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Desh believed that dangerous character traits such as megalomania, sadism, and sociopathy tended to be enriched in populations of people who had risen to positions of power and influence. This enrichment was even more pronounced at the top of organizations such as the CIA and the military, to which people with these pathologies tended to gravitate preferentially.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“I know it’s like drinking from a fire-hose.” Desh”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.” —Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher (1844-1900)”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Love was a lizard brain instinct. A survival mechanism bred into the species that was totally separate from reason. Women were extremely vulnerable during pregnancy, and children were helpless for many years. If humans didn’t have a mechanism for cementing a pair bond, nothing would remain but selfishness and promiscuity. Certain animal species were wired in the same way. How”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.” —Friedrich”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“The more intellect you bring to bear on the question, with faith out of the picture, the more certain you become that God is just a construct of the human mind, nothing more.” Desh”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Humanity seemed to have a singular ability to find destructive uses for any constructive technology. Invent the computer, and you could be certain someone would invent computer viruses and other ways to attack it. Invent the Internet, an unimaginable treasure trove of information, and you could bet it would be used as a recruiting tool for hate mongers and instantly turned into a venue for child pornographers, sexual predators, and scam artists. Humanity never failed to find a way to become its own worst enemy.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“unlike a computer, the brain is controlling our every movement, breath, heartbeat, and blink of an eye, and even our every emotion. And all the while it’s taking in massive amounts of sensory information—nonstop. Your retina alone has over one hundred million cells constantly relaying visual information to your brain; in ultra-high definition I might add. If a computer had to monitor and manage your every bodily function and download, process, and react to this never-ending barrage of information, it would melt.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
“Sometimes I think of myself as Frodo in the Lord of The Rings. In my case the ring’s power is that of almost inconceivable creativity and intellect.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired
Douglas E. Richards
Born place: in Fort Benning, Georgia (my dad was in the army)
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“Showed me a strong woman doesn’t need keeping, but feels good to take care of her all the same. Better, you gotta fight for that privilege.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Deacon
“Tilly was downcast; as with all perfectionists, it was the detail others might not notice that destroyed for her the pleasure of achievement.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“It is for my good that I was afflicted, so that I might learn Your statutes. [...] Had Your Torah not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”
― quote from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures
“That's what tears are for, after all. A way for the soul to bleed. Pg. 109”
― Cody McFadyen, quote from Shadow Man
“You don't have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said. You watch them for long enough, and then you'll find the place to wait and they'll come to you. There's nearly always a better way of doing something.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from The Carpet People
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Hope for the FlowersBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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