Paradox Quotes | Quotes about Paradox

Kannnadasan 17:14 Leave a Comment

  • Paradox Quote #1

    [...] cela m'excite de penser à tout ce qui fuit dans la vie au nom de la vie.

    Nicole Brossard

  • Paradox Quote #2

    [D]espite what our intuition tells us, changes in the world’s population are not generally neutral. They are either a good thing or a bad thing. But it is uncertain even what form a correct theory of the value of population would take. In the area of population, we are radically uncertain. We do not know what value to set on changes in the world’s population. If the population shrinks as a result of climate change, we do not know how to evaluate that change. Yet we have reason to think that changes in population may be one of the most morally significant effects of climate change. The small chance of catastrophe may be a major component in the expected value of harm caused by climate change, and the loss of population may be a major component of the badness of catastrophe.

    How should we cope with this new, radical sort of uncertainty? Uncertainty was the subject of chapter 7. That chapter came up with a definitive answer: we should apply expected value theory. Is that not the right answer now? Sadly it is not, because our new sort of uncertainty is particularly intractable. In most cases of uncertainty about value, expected value theory simply cannot be applied.

    When an event leads to uncertain results, expected value theory requires us first to assign a value to each of the possible results it may lead to. Then it requires us to calculate the weighted average value of the results, weighted by their probabilities. This gives us the event’s expected value, which we should use in our decision-making.

    Now we are uncertain about how to value the results of an event, rather than about what the results will be. To keep things simple, let us set aside the ordinary sort of uncertainty by assuming that we know for sure what the results of the event will be. For instance, suppose we know that a catastrophe will have the effect of halving the world’s population. Our problem is that various different moral theories of value evaluate this effect differently. How might we try to apply expected value theory to this catastrophe?

    We can start by evaluating the effect according to each of the different theories of value separately; there is no difficulty in principle there. We next need to assign probabilities to each of the theories; no doubt that will be difficult, but let us assume we can do it somehow. We then encounter the fundamental difficulty. Each different theory will value the change in population according to its own units of value, and those units may be incomparable with one another. Consequently, we cannot form a weighted average of them.

    For example, one theory of value is total utilitarianism. This theory values the collapse of population as the loss of the total well-being that will result from it. Its unit of value is well-being. Another theory is average utilitarianism. It values the collapse of population as the change of average well-being that will result from it. Its unit of value is well-being per person. We cannot take a sensible average of some amount of well-being and some amount of well-being per person. It would be like trying to take an average of a distance, whose unit is kilometers, and a speed, whose unit is kilometers per hour. Most theories of value will be incomparable in this way. Expected value theory is therefore rarely able to help with uncertainty about value.

    So we face a particularly intractable problem of uncertainty, which prevents us from working out what we should do. Yet we have to act; climate change will not wait while we sort ourselves out. What should we do, then, seeing as we do not know what we should do? This too is a question for moral philosophy.

    Even the question is paradoxical: it is asking for an answer while at the same time acknowledging that no one knows the answer. How to pose the question correctly but unparadoxically is itself a problem for moral philosophy.

    John Broome

  • Paradox Quote #3

    A circle has no end.

    Isaac Asimov

  • Paradox Quote #4

    A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.

    Criss Jami

  • Paradox Quote #5

    A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.

    Banksy

  • Paradox Quote #6

    A paradox is a storm that rains on itself.

    Shannon L. Alder

  • Paradox Quote #7

    A paradox may be paradoctored.

    Robert A. Heinlein

  • Paradox Quote #8

    A wise man can say a foolish thing at any time, anywhere, and to anybody.

    Michael Bassey Johnson

  • Paradox Quote #9

    Ah Life,
    Thou art a false truth!

    Raheel Farooq

  • Paradox Quote #10

    Ah, it is impossible.

    No, it is only very difficult - so very difficult that I shall be sure to accomplish it!

    E.D.E.N. Southworth

  • Paradox Quote #11

    Albeit, you are the only one to do the right thing, never feel alone. Always keep in mind that you're trying something people couldn't do ever before, you're having the whole world of righteousness in yourself.

    M.H. Rakib

  • Paradox Quote #12

    All generalizations are false, including this one.

    Albert Einstein

  • Paradox Quote #13

    All their life, people work hard to earn money, and they never earn enough money to fulfill their dreams. Is this a paradox?

    Saurabh Sharma

  • Paradox Quote #14

    All those who perish in the wrath of God
    Here meet together out of every land;
    And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
    Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
    So that their fear is turned into desire.
    This way there never passes a good soul;
    And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
    Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.

    Dante Alighieri

  • Paradox Quote #15

    An ambitious, paradoxical world we live in -
    of short attention spans
    paired with the massive fear
    of being forgotten too soon.

    Sreesha Divakaran

  • Paradox Quote #16

    An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

    Edith Wharton

  • Paradox Quote #17

    And he who wields white, wild magic gold is a paradox
    For he is everything and nothing
    Hero and fool
    Potent, helpless
    And with one word of truth or treachery
    He will save or damn the earth
    Because he is mad and sane
    Cold and passionate
    Lost and found

    Stephen R. Donaldson

  • Paradox Quote #18

    And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.

    Julian Barnes

  • Paradox Quote #19

    And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

    Erica Jong

  • Paradox Quote #20

    As a rule,
    I believe people shouldn't follow rules;
    rules should follow people.

    Eric Micha'el Leventhal

  • Paradox Quote #21

    As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

    Charles Baudelaire

  • Paradox Quote #22

    At which Charion Pratt blushed girlishly, to her own furious embarrassment, yet the eye she cast upon the little coxcomb was not unlike that which a certain toad had once cast upon her: for there is never anything but apparent paradox in the choices made by lovers.

    Michael Moorcock

  • Paradox Quote #23

    Baisu ne tai, kas pasakyta, bet tai, kas nutyleta

    Ernest Hello

  • Paradox Quote #24

    Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.

    Bob Dylan

  • Paradox Quote #25

    Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.

    Isaiah Berlin

  • Paradox Quote #26

    but that was the thing about reality. It didn't need to make sense.

    Mira Grant

  • Paradox Quote #27

    Cameron is Shrimp
    Shrimp is small.
    I am big.
    Oximoron

    Cameron Martinez

  • Paradox Quote #28

    Can omniscient God, who
    Knows the future, find
    The Omnipotence to
    Change His future mind?

    Karen Owens

  • Paradox Quote #29

    Can you be in love with more than one person and only one person at the same time? Yes, if you’re in love with two clones.

    Jarod Kintz

  • Paradox Quote #30

    Confusion is not a bad thing. It's not doubt that makes a man mad. It's certainty.

    Pauline Melville

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