Your wariness of good pithy quotes makes sense, they are intended to be infectious memes. Just as our bodies need lotsa bacteria in order to function, infectious memes increase the carrying and staying power of ideas in our mind. Just as our bodies are screwed if we get the wrong bacteria, our thinking can be ill with the wrong memes.
For myself, I take the fact that I like a lot of these quotes as motivation to learn more about the ones I don’t understand. I am weak on the difference between beliefs and preferences, yet I’m sure it is on the edge of a very active part of my current thinking. I suspect the “high discount rate for learning, low for knowing” is backwards but I need to work it through to decide. Etc.
Pithy quotes like this increase the likelihood that I will follow through on learning more. Hopefully this is an effective way to protect against “bad” pithy quotes getting a neuron-hold on my brain.
Your wariness of good pithy quotes makes sense, they are intended to be infectious memes. Just as our bodies need lotsa bacteria in order to function, infectious memes increase the carrying and staying power of ideas in our mind. Just as our bodies are screwed if we get the wrong bacteria, our thinking can be ill with the wrong memes.
For myself, I take the fact that I like a lot of these quotes as motivation to learn more about the ones I don’t understand. I am weak on the difference between beliefs and preferences, yet I’m sure it is on the edge of a very active part of my current thinking. I suspect the “high discount rate for learning, low for knowing” is backwards but I need to work it through to decide. Etc.
Pithy quotes like this increase the likelihood that I will follow through on learning more. Hopefully this is an effective way to protect against “bad” pithy quotes getting a neuron-hold on my brain.