Machines Like Us

"In the US and in Britain, magnetism and gravity are understood better by children before they've been to school than afterwards."

~ JONATHAN DRORI

"Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out."

~ THOMAS CARDINAL WOLSEY

"The test of validity of a scientific theory is not whether it is perfect or whether it explains everything or whether it makes us feel happy or satisfies some deep emotional need, but whether it works better than any of its competitors. And there is nothing that comes even close to replacing the neo-Darwinian synthesis as the explanation of life's diversity."

~ MANO SINGHAM

"Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts, seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."

~ HERBERT SPENCER

"Intelligence is making predictions about novel events."

~ JEFF HAWKINS

"The secret to productivity in so many fields is letting dead people do your work for you."

~ ROBERT LANG

"Just as we may eventually take the brain apart, neuron by neuron, and never find the model, we may discover that true AI came into existence without anyone ever developing a coherent model of reality or an unambiguous theory of intelligence. Reality, with all its ambiguities, does the job just fine. It may be that our true destiny as a species is to build an intelligence that proves highly successful, whether we understand how it works or not."

~ GEORGE DYSON

"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!"

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

~ KURT VONNEGUT

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

~ KURT VONNEGUT