Quotes: Simplicity. Simulations and Virtual Reality. Sin.

Simplicity
The universe and machines have simplicity in their own way.
Simplicity 308 The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. Emerson, Spiritual Laws.

Simulations and Virtual Reality
Simulations that are very realistic become virtual reality.
Simulations virtual reality 200 When simulations get completely realistic, we enter the realm of virtual reality. Gates, The Road Ahead.

Sin
To err is human and only he who does not repent is cursed.
Sin 199 Tiresias: To err is human, true,/ And only he is cursed who having sinned/ Will not repent, will not repair. Sophocles. Antigone.

The unpardonable sin is to explore the human soul with cold, philosophical curiosity, the separation of intellect and heart.
Sin 284 “The Unpardonable Sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its dark depths, not with the hope or purpose of making it better, but from a cold philosophical curiosity…. Would not this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

The unpardonable sinner is coldly bent on the destruction of another human soul.
Sin 304 Roger Chillingworth exemplifies the unpardonable sinner, divorced from the warmth and disorder of human affection, coldly bent on the destruction of another human soul. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Sinners instinctively recognize others like them, secret sharers of hidden guilt.
Sin 305 Like Goodman Brown, Hester Prynne becomes a secret sharer of the hidden guilt and shames of others; instinctively, she knows when she has passed a fellow sinner, even if it is a blushing maid or a pious old woman. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Hawthorne’s “unpardonable sin” was the triumph of the intellect over the heart.
Sin 372 Melville on reading “The Unpardonable Sin”: “It is a frightful poetical creed that the cultivation of the brain eats out the heart…I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Hawthorne looked for the sin that could symbolize his own deeply felt sense of human sinfulness.
Sin 547 Throughout his imaginative life, Hawthorne had found it difficult to define the precise nature of the sin that would correspond to his own deep-seated sense of human sinfulness. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Most people hide their sins, but I live in sin openly, scornful of your paradise.
Sin 158 For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly…and your paradise is not to my taste. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

My sin is unpardonable, will never be forgiven by God.
Sin 439 "I have committed the unpardonable sin…I was in great wrath and trouble, and my thoughts was so wicked towards God that I can't expect ever to be forgiven." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

The early Christians equated happiness with sin.
Sin 223 When [the early Christians] heard happiness mentioned they always put it down to sin. Mencken, Minority Report.

Every sins is joined with the great mass of human sinfulness, making each sinner guilty of the whole.
Sin 1000 It is a terrible thought, that an individual wrong-doing melts into the great mass of human crime, and makes us—who dreamed only of our own little separate sin—makes us guilty of the whole. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The young and innocent are likely to find out about sin by the guilt of a friend.
Sin 1021 The young and pure are not apt to find out that miserable truth [the existence of sin], until it is brought home to them by the guiltiness of some trusted friend. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The innocent learn about sin because one whom they revered becomes guilty.
Sin 1021 In due time, some mortal, whom they [the innocent] reverence too highly, is commissioned by Providence to teach them this direful lesson; he perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, and, Paradise…is lost again…. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Through sin, are humans destined to rise to higher heights?
Sin 1215 Was that very sin—into which Adam precipitated himself and all his race—was it the destined means by which, over a long pathway of toil and sorrow, we are to attain a higher, brighter and profounder happiness, than our lost birthright gave? Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Sin is an instrument of education.
Sin 1215 Sin…has really become an instrument most effective in the education of intellect and soul. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The Scarlet letter gave her a sympathy with others who had secret sin.
Sin 192 She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it [the scarlet letter] gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

Obsession is a sin.
Sin, Guilt 76 Hippolytus, like Prometheus, is innocent; yet, in his intense concentration on one aspect of reality, he is also guilty…by failing to appreciate other forces which exist. Warner, Euripides, Hippolytus.