Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wienerwas an American mathematician and philosopher. He was professor of mathematics at MIT...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth26 November 1894
CountryUnited States of America
brain information matter
The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.
matter energy information
Information is information; it is neither matter nor energy.
organization giving information
Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.
adequate information
To live effectively is to live with adequate information.
friday modern physicist quantum relativity student sunday theorist theory
The modern physicist is a quantum theorist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a student of gravitational relativity theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sunday he is praying. . . that someone will find the reconciliation between the two views.
confusion community mind
Until we in the community have made up our minds that what we really want is expiation, or removal, or reform, or or the discouragement of potential criminals, we shall get none of these, but only a confusion in which crime breeds more crime.
believe ethical-principles progress
It is possible to believe in progress as a fact without believing in progress as an ethical principle; but in the catechism of many Americans, the one goes with the other.
engineering names important
There are fields of scientific work...which have been explored from the different sides of pure mathematics, statistics, electrical engineering, and neurophysiology...in which every single notion receives a separate and different name from each group, and in which important work has been triplicated or quadruplicated, while still other important work is delayed by the unavailability in one field of results that may have already become classical in the next field.
ambition men two
We are in the position of the man who has only two ambitions in life. One is to invent the universal solvent which will dissolve any solid substance, and the second is to invent the universal container which will hold any liquid. Whatever this inventor does, he will be frustrated.
punishment tragedy world
The sense of tragedy is that the world is not a pleasant little nest made for our protection, but a vast and largely hostile environment, in which we can achieve great things only by defying the gods; and that this defiance inevitably brings its own punishment.
use waste degradation
Any use of a human being in which less is demanded of him and less is attributed to him than his full status is a degradation and a waste.
simple progress acquiescence
The simple faith in progress is not a conviction belonging to strength, but one belonging to acquiescence and hence to weakness.
successful games chess-game
A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.
interesting granted results
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.