With Continual Reference to Justin Kahn.

Monday, May 15, 2006

A Quote by a Favorite Russian Author and Not So Much a Portrait of the Artist as a Brain, But an Important Medical Diagram

“So what I’d advise you to learn is this. The human brain is distinguished not only by its dimensions, but by its ability to assimilate input. The brain, crudely speaking, can be a warehouse, a mill or a chemical laboratory. A warehouse can be really vast and stocked with various items, but the more items there are, the harder it is to make sense of them. A mill can only grind up whatever is poured into it. It may be small and primitive, but it will still grind good grain into pretty good flour. But even if you take a big, modern mill, the very finest, with good grindstones and ideal sieves and load it up with bad grain,, it won’t turn out anything that’s any good. The creative brain is the highest, a chemical laboratory—load anything you like into it and it produces something fundamentally new, a synthesis. Everything in it works: knowledge, memory, the capacity for independent thought. That kind of brain is ver rare even among people with big heads.”

From Monmental Propaganda by Vladimir Voinovich

Today's post is dedicated for obvious reasons(if you read the comments, anyway) to Jason Hughes.

13 comments:

Jenn said...

In other words, garbage in, garbage out?

Justin said...

What?! My Brain???

Jenn said...

OK. Technically what you have just perpetrated is what they call in the old country (Atlantis or Lemuria for choice), a non sequitur.

Yes. Your brain.

Justin said...

Well, in that case, you are mistaken.

Lots of good stuff goes into my brain. I can't help it, what comes out.

Thanks for talking to me. This partyy would have been lonely otherwise.

WIP said...

amen to can't happen with what comes out

it's called word VOMIT

I do that alot

Jenn said...

No problem. We spam bots have to pass the time of day somehow. And what better way than to take up space in Concept of Irony.

I thought the post was about GiGo. I wasn't referring to your brain in particular.

Ooooooooohhhhhhh sensitive!

Justin said...

Jenn:

I never saw that movie. I don't really like ben affleck.

Justin

Justin said...

wip: You Mean Metaphorically Right?

WIP said...

theoretically yes Justin

really- uhh NO

read my profile it explains

so does my blog... sometimes :-)

Anonymous said...

Sometimes something seems to be drilling into the brain while I try to decide whether high or low frequency words in phrases containing phonemes and pseudophonemes require less reaction time. The answer ironically is usually in my hands. :)

Jenn said...

Gigo, Gigli. I can see how you would make the mistake.

If I wanted to get the point across I should reference Dante or Nabokov or someone of that ilk.

Sorry Justin, am just not smart enough. You have to settle for pop culture references.

Justin said...

jenn:
Oh GIGO. Why Didn't you say so in the first place?

Good communication is an important part of any healthy/creepy relationship.

I'll have to look up Dante and Nabokov from Wikipedia. But it's not like I've never heard of Nabokov--I love sting and other pop culture stuff.

justin.

Jim said...

the problem with encyclopedias is that some human wrote the articles, so where does that leave you but garbage in and garbage out, maybe, maybe, and then who knows about the big heads and the big words, it is the sense that counts, and not the cents that the writer has in the National Trust either. Nice blog, ya'll are a bit nuts like the rest of us.