A Commonplace Book

Home | Authors | Titles | Words | Subjects | Random Quote | About...


Search Help | Advanced Search


In any sufficiently powerful logical system statements can be formulated which can neither be proved nor disproved within the system, unless possibly the system itself is inconsistent.
Godel's Theorem as stated by Alan Turing.
permalink

Mulder: Whatever happened to playing a hunch, Scully? The element of surprise, random acts of unpredictabilty? If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilites, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced. [Pops a sunflower seed into his mouth.] What are we doing up here, Scully? It's hotter than hell.
-- Chris Carter. movie, The X-Files (1998)
permalink

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
-- Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of The Four Chapter 6
permalink

The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantasically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenusously bent to fit.
-- Douglas Adams. Dirk Gently in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul p.156
permalink

The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole.
-- C. G. Jung "Retrospect" in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. (1963) p. 356.
permalink

Tertullian (one of the founders of the Catholic Church) was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical fact, for he merely said:
"And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it is impossible."
Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it.
-- C. G. Jung. Psychological Types.
permalink

"...the premise of probability simultaneously postulates the existence of the improbable."
-- C. J. Jung. Letters (1973) 2:540.
permalink

"What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

"I reject that entirely," said Dirk sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.'"

"Well, it happened to me today, in fact," replied Kate.

"Ah, yes," said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump. "Your girl in the wheelchair -- a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday's stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality."

-- Douglas Adams. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) p.169
permalink

The irrational fullness of life has taught me never to discard anything, even when it goes against all our theories (so short-lived at best) or otherwise admits of no immediate explanation. It is of course disquieting, and one is not certain whether the compass is pointing true or not; but security, certitude, and peace do not lead to discoveries.
-- Carl Jung. "I Ching, The book of Changes (Foreword), Princeton University Press; 3rd edition (October 21, 1967).
permalink

9 quotes found
Home | Authors | Titles | Words | Subjects | Random Quote | Advanced Search | About...

If you can see this sentence, you do not have style sheets enabled in your browser. See more information on style sheets.