Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.
Since the dawn of the Internet, I have always operated under the assumption that if the government or corporations have technological capability to do something, they are doing it - whatever the laws we happen to know about might say.
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
You never know what curve balls life is going to throw you and there's no way I can predict anything or make any assumptions about what the rest of my life is going to be like.
The assumption should be that we will not appear in print or the blogosphere. Having dinner should not be fodder for Facebook. And this is just as true for 'public personalities' as it is for the average person. After all, even people in the public e...
The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began.
It's a rare moment when we take a break from the tribulations of the daily rat race to reflect on assumptions and values that we casually accept as gospel.
The people who whine about Fox News are hypocrites - they say they're totally tolerant, but when they run into someone who doesn't share their assumptions, they say, 'Fox News is evil, and it must be stopped.'
My approach to creating content is focused on pulling people out of their intellectual comfort zones. I'm interested in presenting ideas in unique ways that challenge people to question their assumptions.
The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.
Banning books is just another form of bullying. It's all about fear and an assumption of power. The key is to address the fear and deny the power.
And the Russians certainly don't have it. If a woman shows up in a fur coat, I just assume she's a crook. And that's me, the nice American. The assumption that you can't make money honestly is a killer.
I don't think there's an interesting boundary between philosophy and science. Science is totally beholden to philosophy. There are philosophical assumptions in science and there's no way to get around that.
As I get older I think, contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song, that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man.
It feels wistful to imagine a time when people didn't go about their daily routine with the assumption that at any moment another massive media technology will be dumped on us by some geek in California.
Tick: What do you assume I do? Lie? Marion: Assumption, my dear Mitz, is the mother of all fuck-ups.
I think that's created a healthy environment. The comparisons to 'ER' were maddening and there was this assumption that the two of us were looking at each other with rage and resentment, which was also not the case.
I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.
Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.
I want to be part of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame, but I don't want to be part of the kind of Hall of Fame that's based on voters' beliefs and assumptions.
We all make assumptions every day. Some more important than others. Some more damaging than others. And things, very often, are not at all what they seem.
