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Theorems often tell us complex truths about the simple things, but only rarely tell us simple truths about the complex ones. To believe otherwise is wishful thinking or mathematics envy.

Marvin Minsky

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Marvin Minsky
Age: 88 †
Born: 1927
Born: August 9
Died: 2016
Died: January 24
Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
Scientist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Marvin Lee Minsky
Marvin L. Minsky
Ones
Theorems
Simple
Truths
Often
Rarely
Tell
Complexes
Believe
Complex
Things
Envy
Thinking
Otherwise
Mathematics
Wishful

More quotes by Marvin Minsky

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Everything, including that which happens in our brains, depends on these and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws.
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There was a failure to recognize the deep problems in AI for instance, those captured in Blocks World. The people building physical robots learned nothing.
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Our present culture may be largely shaped by this strange idea of isolating children's thought from adult thought. Perhaps the way our culture educates its children better explains why most of us come out as dumb as they do, than it explains how some of us come out as smart as they do.
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It would be as useless to perceive how things 'actually look' as it would be to watch the random dots on untuned television screens.
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This is a tricky domain because, unlike simple arithmetic, to solve a calculus problem - and in particular to perform integration - you have to be smart about which integration technique should be used: integration by partial fractions, integration by parts, and so on.
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If we understood something just one way, we would not understand it at all.
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Experience has shown that science frequently develops most fruitfully once we learn to examine the things that seem the simplest, instead of those that seem the most mysterious.
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The principal activities of brains are making changes in themselves.
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Once the computers got control, we might never get it back. We would survive at their sufferance. If we're lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets.
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One can acquire certainty only by amputating inquiry.
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By the way, it was his simulations that helped out in Jurassic Park - without them, there would have been only a few dinosaurs. Based on his techniques, Industrial Light and Magic could make whole herds of dinosaurs race across the screen.
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How many processes are going on, to keep that teacup level in your grasp? There must be a hundred of them.
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But the big feature of human-level intelligence is not what it does when it is works but what it does when it's stuck.
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Societies need rules that make no sense for individuals. For example, it makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But it makes all the difference when there are many cars!
Marvin Minsky
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What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle.
Marvin Minsky
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Eventually, robots will make everything.
Marvin Minsky
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Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children.
Marvin Minsky
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All intelligent problem solvers are subject to the same ultimate constraints - limitations on space, time, and materials.
Marvin Minsky
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In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.
Marvin Minsky
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General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.
Marvin Minsky