Same topic Authors
Quote of the day

Even the simplest things, I'm guilty of making really bad decisions a lot of the time.

Popular Topics
Once Upon A Time, Things, Feelings, Glory, Flower, Faith, Impossible, America, Girl, Acknowledge, Pregnancy, Gold, Justice, Stories, Goodbye, Education, Hope, Life, Body, Future, Today, Secret, Subject, Funny, Story, Journey, Songs, Disco, Angry, Peace Love, Weak, Humbly, Philosophy, Surprised, Nice, Loves, Math, Town, Ideas, Ocean, Jesus, Like, I Like You, Dance, Adventure, Guru, Reality, Amazing Music, Inspiring, Things In Life
John Searle

How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents?

Election, Elections, Electrons, President, Presidents, Proton
Same Author Quotes

It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule.

Believe, Clear, Effort, Number, Numbers, Philosophers

The reason that no computer program can ever be a mind is simply that a computer program is only syntactical, and minds are more than syntactical. Minds are semantical, in the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have a content.

Computer, Content, Mind, Reason

You can't *discover* that the brain is a digital computer. You can only *interpret* the brain as a digital computer.

Brain, Computer, Digital, Discover, Interpret

We do not live in several different, or even two different, worlds, a mental world and a physical world, a scientific world and a world of common sense. Rather, there is just one world; it is the world we all live in, and we need to account for how we exist as part of it.

Common, Common Sense, Exist, Knowledge, Mental, Two

Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. . . Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill. . . At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

Childhood, Electromagnetic, Science, Technology, Thought
Similar Quotes