Indigenous to Minnesota, and almost completely ignored by its people, are the stark, unornamented, functional clusters of concrete...--Minnesota's grain elevators. These may be said to express unconsciously all the principles of modernism, being built for use only, with little regard for the tenets of esthetic design.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One can imagine a computer simulation of the action of peptides in the hypothalamus that is accurate down to the last synapse. But... equally one can imagine a computer simulation of the oxidation of hydrocarbons in a car engine or the action of digestive processes in a stomach when it is digesting pizza. And the simulation is no more the real thing in the case of the brain than it is in the case of the car or the stomach. Barring miracles, you could not run your car by doing a computer simulation of the oxidation of gasoline, and you could not digest pizza by running the program that simulates such digestion. It seems obvious that a simulation of cognition will similarly not produce the effects of the neurobiology of cognition.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
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 »
The existence of pleasure is the first mystery. The existence of pain has prompted far more philosophical speculation. Pleasure an...d pain need to be considered together; they are inseparable. Yet the space filled by each is perhaps different. Pleasure, defined as a sense of gratification, is essential for nature's workings. Otherwise there would be no impulse to satisfy the needs which ensure the body's and the species' survival. And survival--for reasons we do not know--is inwritten, inscribed as nature's only goal. Gratification, or its anticipation, acts as a goad. Pain or the fear of pain acts as a warning. Both are essential. The difference between them, considered as opposites, is that pleasure has a constant tendency to exceed its functional purpose, to not know its place.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What makes the computer's representation special is that it can be manipulated so rapidly without direct human intervention. Once ...the program is determined and the machine set to work, the electrons fly until an answer is produced. An abacus can produce an answer mechanically by means of a person who unthinkingly slides the counters according to the rules. And yet the very fact that a human being is needed to push the counters suggests a close link between man and machine. The abacus is a tool rather than a machine, for it extends human technical capabilities while remaining intimately under human control. A machine runs more or less under its own control, with its own sense of purpose and its own inanimate source of power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... there is a dangerous trend observable in some quarters of the Movement to program Sapphire out of her "evil" ways into a cover...-up, shut-up, lay-back-and-be-cool obedience role. She is being assigned an unreal role of mute servant that supposedly neutralizes the acidic tension that exists between Black men and Black women. She is being encouraged--in the name of revolution no less--to cultivate "virtues" that if listed would sound like the personality traits of slaves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a first approximation, I define "belief" not as the object of believing (a dogma, a program, etc.) but as the subject's investm...ent in a proposition, the act of saying it and considering it as true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children in home-school conflict situations often receive a double message from their parents: "The school is the hope for your fu...ture, listen, be good and learn" and "the school is your enemy. . . ." Children who receive the "school is the enemy" message often go after the enemy--act up, undermine the teacher, undermine the school program, or otherwise exercise their veto power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »