A Quote by Daniel Kahneman

Human beings cannot comprehend very large or very small numbers. It would be useful for us to acknowledge that fact. — © Daniel Kahneman
Human beings cannot comprehend very large or very small numbers. It would be useful for us to acknowledge that fact.
Do not be afraid of large patterns, if properly designed they are more restful to the eye than small ones: on the whole, a pattern where the structure is large and the details much broken up is the most useful...very small rooms, as well as very large ones, look better ornamented with large patterns.
If the basic human nature was aggressive, we would have been born with animal claws & huge teeth -- but ours are very short, very pretty, very weak! That means we are not well equipped to be aggressive beings. Even the size of our mouth is very small. So I think the basic nature of human beings should be gentle.
I feel like human beings can't help but destroy, but if our numbers are small we don't destroy as much as we do when our numbers are this huge and out of control. I wonder, what's the carrying capacity for human beings? When do we get to the point when we can't take it anymore, when it becomes too unpleasant to us just to be here because there's too many of us and there's no solitude anymore.
The trouble with integers is that we have examined only the very small ones. Maybe all the exciting stuff happens at really big numbers, ones we can't even begin to think about in any very definite way. Our brains have evolved to get us out of the rain, find where the berries are, and keep us from getting killed. Our brains did not evolve to help us grasp really large numbers or to look at things in a hundred thousand dimensions.
It is very hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal." Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: "It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.
Let's imagine again an observer looking at us without any preconceptions. I think he would be struck by the fact that although human beings have the capacity to develop scientific knowledge, it must be a very limited capacity because it is only done in very narrow and specific domains.
What children don't understand, and can't understand until they grow up some, is how much the whole fabric and process of human society depends on everybody agreeing to ignore, most of the time, the fact that all of us are, most of the time, inadequate, incompetent, pitiful, and, in fact, naked to our enemies. None of us really has very much in the way of spiritual, moral clothing. We dress ourselves in rags. And we agree to say nothing about it. To a very large extent, it is human charity that clothes us.
The world is fine and everything is normal and then, bang, you just get bowled over by the wrathful deities somehow. That happens in very small ways and happens in very large ways when you have a major conflagration in the world. It's another cycle of existence of human beings.
The astronaut corps is a very small part of a very large team that enables human spaceflight.
We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
We have all kinds of limitations as human beings. I mean we can't see the whole electromagnetic spectrum; we can't see the very small; we can't see the very far. So we compensate for these short comings with technological scaffoldings. The microscope allows us to extend our vision into the micro-sphere.
Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness.
I think one can achieve a very pleasant lifestyle by treating human beings, fellow human beings, very well.
We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration.
There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.
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