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If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can't predict what they will do.

Stephen Hawking

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Stephen Hawking
Age: 76 †
Born: 1942
Born: January 8
Died: 2018
Died: March 14
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Autobiographer
Cosmologist
Mathematician
Non-Fiction Writer
Pedagogue
Physicist
Science Fiction Writer
Hawking
Stephen William Hawking
S. W. Hawking
Really
Free
Determines
Way
Action
Organisms
Also
Determine
Presumably
Doe
Complete
Calculate
Reason
Complicated
Governs
Human
Actions
Unified
Everything
Theory
Organism
Humans
Impossible
Predict

More quotes by Stephen Hawking

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It's the gravity that shapes the large scale structure of the universe, even though it is the weakest of four categories of forces
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Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.
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I do not believe in a personal God.
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If a superior alien civilization sent us a message saying, 'We'll arrive in a few decades', would we just reply, 'OK, call us when you get here - we'll leave the lights on'? Probably not - but this is more or less what is happening with AI.
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The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.
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All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God.
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Children in backseats cause accidents. Accidents in backseats cause children.
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It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.
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It matters that you don't just give up.
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Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
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We've created life in our own image.
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Over a very small number of rolls of the dice, the uncertainty principle is very important.
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I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.
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One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.
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We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.
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Humanities deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for continuing our quest. and our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.
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What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
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The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
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I thought Eddie Redmayne portrayed me very well... At times I thought he was me.
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We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?
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