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We turn to quantities when we can't compare the qualities of things.

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
Quantity
Qualities
Compare
Turn
Quality
Turns
Things
Quantities

More quotes by Marvin Minsky

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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.
Marvin Minsky
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You don't understand anything unless you understand there are at least 3 ways.
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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I believed in realism, as summarized by John McCarthy's comment to the effect that if we worked really hard, we'd have an intelligent system in from four to four hundred years.
Marvin Minsky
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The brain happens to be a meat machine.
Marvin Minsky
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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
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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.
Marvin Minsky
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Anyone could learn Lisp in one day, except that if they already knew Fortran, it would take three days.
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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It would be as useless to perceive how things 'actually look' as it would be to watch the random dots on untuned television screens.
Marvin Minsky
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Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.
Marvin Minsky
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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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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
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If we understood something just one way, we would not understand it at all.
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
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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.
Marvin Minsky
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Everything is similar if you're willing to look far out of focus.
Marvin Minsky
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In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.
Marvin Minsky
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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.
Marvin Minsky
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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