A computer does not think, it feels nothing, and what it is said to "know"--bits of information all cast in the digital mode--has ...no fringe. Nor has it a memory, only storage room. On any point called for, the answer is all or none. Vagueness, intelligent confusion, original punning on words or ideas never occur, the internal hookups being unchangeable; they were determined once for all by the true minds that made the machine and program. When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity; the greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mistakes, scandals, and failures no longer signal catastrophe. The crucial thing is that they be made credible, and that the publi...c be made aware of the efforts being expended in that direction. The "marketing" immunity of governments is similar to that of the major brands of washing powder.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some animals, especially domesticated animals, are extremely susceptible to signs. A dog will react to the slightest change in the... behavior of his master; he will even distinguish the expressions of a human face or the modulations of a human voice. But it is far cry from these phenomena to an understanding of symbolic and human speech.... Symbols--in the proper sense of this term--cannot be reduced to mere signals. Signals and symbols belong to two different universes of discourse: a signal is a part of the physical world of being; a symbol is a part of the human world of meaning. Signals are "operators"; symbols are "designators."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is exasperating to see little brown men and little yellow men from the mysterious Orient, and the opaque black men of Africa (t...o say nothing of those impudent American Negroes!) who come to the U.N. and talk smart to us, who are scurrying all over our globe in their strange modes of dress--much as if they were new, unpleasant arrivals from another planet. Many whites believe in their ulcers that it is only a matter of time before the Marines get the signal to round up these truants and put them back securely in their cages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The child receives data through the sense organs; the child also has some inborn processing capacities--otherwise it would not be ...able to learn--but in addition, some "information" or "programs" are built-in at birth (for example, the child does not have to learn how to suck, for this is an innate reflex); there is a working memory, in which the child keeps those items of knowledge that are being used at a particular moment; and there is a permanent memory, which is, in Locke's terms, largely a "blank tablet" at birth, but which has a storage capacity that makes a hard disk pale into insignificance. The child gradually builds up a symbolic representation of the world around it, so there must be some inner "language" or medium of representation; even a newborn baby is starting to see and taste and smell and hear and touch, and to remember the more striking of its experiences, so the internal medium by which it represents and stores these impressions cannot be the native language (of which it is still ignorant. Jerry Fodor [in The Language of Thought] has discussed this inbuilt "language of thought," which is similar conceptually to the "machine language" that is built into the personal computer and about which most users remain completely ignorant).LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Computers were originally just supposed to be number-crunchers, but now their number-crunching has been harnessed in a thousand im...aginative ways to create new virtual machines, such as video games and word processors, in which the underlying number-crunching is almost invisible, and in which new powers seem quite magical. Our brains, similarly, weren't designed (except for some very recent peripheral organs) for word processing, but now a large portion--perhaps even the lion's share--of the activity that takes place in adult human brains is involved in a sort of word processing: speech production and comprehension, and the serial rehearsal and rearrangement of linguistic items, or better, their neural surrogates. And these activities magnify and transform the underlying hardware powers in ways that seem (from the "outside") quite magical.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he s...eldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion.... The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The experience of a sense of guilt for wrong-doing is necessary for the development of self-control. The guilt feelings will later... serve as a warning signal which the child can produce himself when an impulse to repeat the naughty act comes over him. When the child can produce his on warning signals, independent of the actual presence of the adult, he is on the way to developing a conscience.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Perhaps having built a barricade when you're sixteen provides you with a sort of safety rail. If you've once taken part in buildin...g one, even inadvertently, doesn't its usually latent image reappear like a warning signal whenever you're tempted to join the police, or support any manifestation of Law and Order?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nelson's famous signal before the Battle of Trafalgar was not: "England expects that every man will be a hero." It said: "England ...expects that every man will do his duty." In 1805 that was enough. It should still be.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »