Andrea diSessa famous quotes

Text is linear; it is black and white; it doesn't zoom around the page in 3-D; it isn't intelligent by itself; in fact, in terms of immediate reaction it is quite boring. I can't imagine a single preliterate was ever wowed at the first sight of text, and yet text has been the basis of arguably the most fundamental intellectual transformation of the human species. It and its subforms, such as algebra, have made science education for all a plausible goal.
-- Andrea diSessa

#Learning #Black And White #Intelligent

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.

Of all the girls I ever knew some loved and some denied me And all the words I ever said have been no use to hide me And all the songs I ever sung each one of them untied me And all the girls I ever loved have left themselves inside me.

The colour grey makes you feel uneasy, makes things seem complicated and hopeless, it upsets the notion of black and white. Good and evil? There is no such thing. There is a little good and a evil, a little black and a little white. Grey is not an attractive colour, but perhaps it is the one that describes the world most accurately.

It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!

When I photographed Marilyn Monroe, I mixed up my cameras - one had black-and-white film, the other color. I took many pictures. Only two color ones came out all right. My favorite picture of Marilyn hangs always on the wall in my office. It was taken on the little patio of her Hollywood house.

The most beautiful colors laid on at random, give less pleasure than a black-and-white drawing.

And now, advice for beginning mystics. Be sober, be intelligent, be educated, rely on the tangible reality as long as you can. Remember that the act of writing is a tiny part of a bigger something. Defend the value of the spiritual experience and if somebody tells you it's an old fashioned notion, laugh loudly and serenely.

Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.