B. F. Skinner Quotes

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

In the realm of strong A.I. or in the realm of human consciousness, I think that it's been something that troubles humans or forces us to look at it over and over for millennia, or as long as we've really been conscious, because there is no answer. There is no explanation for us, even for a one percent grip to hold on to. So we just don't know why we're here, we don't know how consciousness is created.

Here is this three-pound mass of jelly you can hold in the palm of your hand, and it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space. It can contemplate the meaning of infinity and it can contemplate itself contemplating on the meaning of infinity.

The programmers have another saying: 'The question of whether a machine can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.'

The self driving car is not self-aware. It's just driving; it's not thinking.

That in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body

I still find it hard to understand that anyone could argue that you can't have machines that exhibit consciousness.

No computer has ever been designed that is ever aware of what it's doing; but most of the time, we aren't either.

Philosophy teaches how man thinks he thinks; but drinking shows how he really thinks.

Sometimes it seems as though each new step towards AI, rather than producing something which everyone agrees is real intelligence, merely reveals what real intelligence is not.

I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.

I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.

The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.

Scientists who have dedicated their lives to building machines that think, feel that it's only a matter of time before some form of consciousness is captured in the laboratory.

We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of existence in isolation from all other psychic powers.

Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think. Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.

The soul is characterized by these capacities; self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and movement.

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

Strictly speaking, you don't think: Thinking happens to you.

But it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves and God. It is this in us which we call the rational soul or mind.

If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind.

You think you have a memory; but it has you!

The Droid I had actually seemed to have free will, which I thought was interesting.

Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

I think we can all recognize in some way or another that we as a human species, have been granted an incredible gift of intentionality and of consciousness. Perhaps this gift is a hint to how we should conduct our lives.