Marvin Minsky Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren’t flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.

  Marvin Minsky

  Typewriters, Trying, Sound

  28 Copy quote

• There are three basic approaches to AI: Case-based, rule-based, and connectionist reasoning.

  Marvin Minsky

  Three, Cases, Approach

  12 Copy quote

• If we understood something just one way, we would not understand it at all.

  Marvin Minsky

  Knowledge, Way, Understood

  "Music, Mind, and Meaning". Computer Music Journal, Vol. 5, Number 3, web.media.mit.edu. Fall 1981.

  9 Copy quote

• Daniel Dennett is our best current philosopher. He is the next Bertrand Russell. Unlike traditional philosophers, Dan is a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology. He's redefining and reforming the role of the philosopher.

  Marvin Minsky

  Psychology, Roles, Next

  43 Copy quote

• It's ridiculous to live 100 years and only be able to remember 30 million bytes. You know, less than a compact disc. The human condition is really becoming more obsolete every minute.

  Marvin Minsky

  Technology, Years, Able

  25 Copy quote

• We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mistake, Eye, Doors

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.308, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

• In science, one learns the most by studying what seems to be the least.

  Marvin Minsky

  Study, Seems

  11 Copy quote

• The brain happens to be a meat machine.

  Marvin Minsky

  Brain, Meat, Machines

  24 Copy quote

• Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

  Marvin Minsky

  Goal, Language, Computer

  Turing Award Lectures Year Awarded 1969, dl.acm.org. 2007.

  12 Copy quote

• Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know.

  Marvin Minsky

  Would Be, Television, Tvs

  10 Copy quote

• It makes no sense to seek a single best way to represent knowledge-because each particular form of expression also brings its particular limitations. For example, logic-based systems are very precise, but they make it hard to do reasoning with analogies. Similarly, statistical systems are useful for making predictions, but do not serve well to represent the reasons why those predictions are sometimes correct.

  Marvin Minsky

  Knowledge, Expression, Example

  "The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind". Book by Marvin Minsky, 2006.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Differences, Car, Example

  22 Copy quote

• The principal activities of brains are making changes in themselves.

  Marvin Minsky

  Brain, Making Changes, Activity

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

• Good theories of the mind must span at least three different scales of time: slow, for the billions of years in which our brains have survivied; fast, for the fleeting weeks and months of childhood; and in between, the centuries of growth of our ideas through history.

  Marvin Minsky

  Years, Ideas, Childhood

  "The Society of Mind". Book by Marvin Minsky, 1986.

  14 Copy quote

• Speed is what distinguishes intelligence. No bird discovers how to fly: evolution used a trillion bird-years to 'discover' that – where merely hundreds of person-years sufficed.

  Marvin Minsky

  Years, Bird, Evolution

  "Communication with Alien Intelligence". Published in "Extraterrestrials: Science and Alien Intelligence" (Edward Regis, Ed.), web.media.mit.edu. 1985.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Marvin Minsky

  Quality, Compare, Turns

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.284, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• Eventually, robots will make everything.

  Marvin Minsky

  Robots

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Fiction, Way

  11 Copy quote

• I cannot articulate enough to express my dislike to people who think that understanding spoils your experience... How would they know?

  Marvin Minsky

  Humorous, Thinking, People

  "AI Techniques for Game Programming". Book by Mat Buckland, 2002.

  26 Copy quote

• An ethicist is somebody who sees something wrong with whatever you have in mind.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mind

  "Health and the Human Mind". Ted Talk, www.ted.com. February 2003.

  16 Copy quote

• Everything, including that which happens in our brains, depends on these and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws.

  Marvin Minsky

  Law, Brain, Free Will

  19 Copy quote

• Listening to music engages the previously acquired personal knowledge of the listener.

  Marvin Minsky

  Music, Personal Knowledge, Listening

  "Music, Mind, and Meaning". Computer Music Journal, Vol. 5, Number 3, web.media.mit.edu. Fall 1981.

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving On, Vision, Moved On

  10 Copy quote

• Logic doesn't apply to the real world. D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett (eds.) The Mind's I, 1981.

  Marvin Minsky

  Real, Mind, World

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Block, People, Robots

  9 Copy quote

Page 2 of 3

First

← Prev

1

2

3

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin