Quotes by Mort W. Lumsden

Dont you find it odd that two of the foremost symptoms of insanity are the hearing voices and talking to oneself? Is it any wonder that language is an area of such interest in psychology?(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

FV: Annandale defines definition as an explanation of the signification of a term. Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as a statement of the precise meaning of a word. A small, perhaps negligible difference you might think. And neither, would you say, is necessarily more correct than the other? But now look up each of the words comprising each definition, and then the definitions of those definitions, and so on. Some still may only differ slightly, while others may differ quite a lot. Yet any discrepancy, large or small, only compounds that initial difference further and further, pushing each definition farther apart. How similar are they then at the end of this process...assuming it ever would end? Could we possibly even be referring to the same word by this point? And we still havent considered what Collins here...or Gage, or Funk and Wagnalls might have to say about it. Off on enough tangents and youre eventually led completely off track.ML: Or around in circles.FV: Precisely!ML: Oxford, though, is generally considered the authority, isnt it?FV: Well, its certainly the biggest...the most complete. But then, that truly is your vicious circle - every word defined...every word in every definition defined...around and around in an infinite loop. Truly a book that never ends. A concise or abridged dictionary may, at least, have an out...ML: I wonder, then, what the smallest possible complete dictionary would be? Completely self-contained, that is, with every word in every definition accounted for. How many would that be, do you suppose? Or, I guess more importantly, which ones?FV: Well, that brings to mind another problem. You know that Russell riddle about naming numbers?

Theres actually a sort of comfort in the belief that things can only get worse. It gives one an appreciation for the here-and-now, knowing that each and every moment may be as good as its ever going to get. Anyways, I cant imagine living too happy a life - so much to lose. It only figures that the more miserable your life is, the easier it is to lose it. And, when you can lose it at any moment, any time un-enjoyed must be time well spent. (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

Those who cant, and cant teach, translate.(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

Isnt one of the first lessons of good elocution that theres nothing one can say in any rambling, sprawling rant that cant, through some effort, be said shorter and better with a little careful editing? Or that, in writing, theres nothing you can describe in any page-filling paragraph that cant be captured better in just a sentence or two? Perhaps even nothing in any sentence which cannot better be refined in a single, spot-on word? Does it not follow, then, that theres likely nothing one can say in any word - in saying anything at all - that, ultimately, isnt better left unsaid? (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

The topics which language limits us to aren’t much worth discussing in the first place.(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

Dont most astrophysicists now predict some end of the line - an end to it all? Not just the death of things, but the annihilation of everything. Some great contraction, or collapse. Or, perhaps, some vast dissipation into eternal emptiness. Maybe its all swallowed up by an immense black hole, which then swallows itself. But, whatever the case, their extinction is inevitable and absolute. So complete as to erase any and all evidence that this reality - this existence - ever took place. So complete that, perhaps, for all intents and purposes, it never really did. (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

We know there are colours in the spectrum untranslatable to our eyes; sounds beyond the range of our hearing; sensations beyond the tolerance of taste or touch. What else is there that we might be missing? Could it be that we, ourselves, only ever really experience the mere gist of our own lives? (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

The problem with living forever, of course, is you have to live forever before you know youre immortal...or invincible. Even the gods, in this way, must always remain uncertain. Time trumps immortality just as uncertainty trumps omniscience, for a knower can only ever know what it knows, never what it doesnt. (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

Anything you try to quantify can be divided into any number of anythings, or become the thing - the unit - itself. And what is any number, itself, but just another unit of measurement? What is a six but two threes, or three twos...half a twelve, or just six ones - which are what? (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)