Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Thinking
Otherwise
Mathematics
Wishful
Ones
Theorems
Simple
Truths
Often
Rarely
Tell
Complexes
Believe
Complex
Things
Envy

More quotes by Marvin Minsky

Image
Everything, including that which happens in our brains, depends on these and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws.
Marvin Minsky
Image
The brain happens to be a meat machine.
Marvin Minsky
Image
One can acquire certainty only by amputating inquiry.
Marvin Minsky
Image
In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.
Marvin Minsky
Image
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.
Marvin Minsky
Image
Eventually, robots will make everything.
Marvin Minsky
Image
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.
Marvin Minsky
Image
In science, one learns the most by studying what seems to be the least.
Marvin Minsky
Image
Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children.
Marvin Minsky
Image
Everything is similar if you're willing to look far out of focus.
Marvin Minsky
Image
You don't understand anything unless you understand there are at least 3 ways.
Marvin Minsky
Image
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.
Marvin Minsky
Image
The principal activities of brains are making changes in themselves.
Marvin Minsky
Image
Kubrick's vision seemed to be that humans are doomed, whereas Clarke's is that humans are moving on to a better stage of evolution.
Marvin Minsky
Image
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
Image
We wanted to solve robot problems and needed some vision, action, reasoning, planning, and so forth. We even used some structural learning, such as was being explored by Patrick Winston.
Marvin Minsky
Image
The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all the other things we know. That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the real meaning of anything. A thing with just one meaning has scarcely any meaning at all.
Marvin Minsky
Image
I bet the human brain is a kludge
Marvin Minsky
Image
An ethicist is somebody who sees something wrong with whatever you have in mind.
Marvin Minsky
Image
To say that the universe exists is silly, because it says that the universe is one of the things in the universe. So there's something wrong with questions like, What caused the Universe to exist?
Marvin Minsky