B. F. Skinner Quotes

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.

I love the human mind.

Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid.

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.'

He that cannot reason is a fool.

Better than the strength of men and horses is our wisdom.

These little grey cells. It is up to them.

Human intelligence is a marvelous, subtle, and poorly understood phenomenon. There is no danger of duplicating it anytime soon.

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

There is no method but to be very intelligent.

Thought means life, since those who do not think so do not live in any high or real sense. Thinking makes the man.

Human intelligence trumps electronic or signals intelligence every time.

The only stupidities that are not easily solved are those created by very intelligent men.

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.

A computational device is incapable of developing a mind. We got consciousness not just by being clever.

I need something, Wax. A place to look. You always did the thinking.” “Yes, having a brain helps with that, surprisingly.

Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.

From now on you're going to have to think. There's a reason why we're born with brains in our heads, not rocks.

What's most interesting about trying to figure out AI is the questions that it forces you to ask about the nature of consciousness.

To think, analyze and invent, he [Pierre Menard] also wrote me, “are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement that the doctor universal is thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be." (Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, 1939)

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

My God...it can think.