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“Magicians protect their secrets not because the secrets are large and important, but because they are so small and trivial. The wonderful effects created on stage are often the result of a secret so absurd that the magician would be embarrassed to admit that that was how it was done.”
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“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
― The God Delusion: A Study of Religious Belief and Skepticism
― The God Delusion: A Study of Religious Belief and Skepticism
“I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.”
― Computing machinery and intelligence
― Computing machinery and intelligence
“Human history has become too much a matter of dogma taught by 'professionals' in ivory towers as though it's all fact. Actually, much of human history is up for grabs. The further back you go, the more that the history that's taught in the schools and universities begins to look like some kind of faerie story.”
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“Being able to "go beyond the information" given to "figure things out" is one of the few untarnishable joys of life. One of the great triumphs of learning (and of teaching) is to get things organised in your head in a way that permits you to know more than you "ought" to. And this takes reflection, brooding about what it is that you know. The enemy of reflection is the breakneck pace - the thousand pictures.”
― Acts of Meaning: Four Lectures on Mind and Culture
― Acts of Meaning: Four Lectures on Mind and Culture
Mona’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mona’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
3,177 books
|
3,192 friends
298 books
|
45 friends
346 books
|
134 friends
428 books
|
97 friends
3 books
|
34 friends
380 books
|
41 friends
2 books
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18 friends
55 books
|
21 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Biography, History, Non-fiction, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Science fiction, linguistics, time-travel, cyberpunk, artificial-intelligence, theology, ancient-history, anthropology, archaeology, geography, european-history, government, presidents, political-science, sociology, social-issues, social-science, education, words, humanities, classical-studies, world-history, cultural-studies, internet, society, academic, grad-school, material-culture, theory, american-history, art-history, microhistory, and books-about-books
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Lists liked by Mona