A Quote by Daniel Dennett
Up till now, we can suppose, nervous systems solved the 'Now what do I do?' problem by a relatively simple balancing act between a strictly limited repertoire of actions - if not the famous four F's (fight, flee, feed, or mate), then a modest elaboration of them.
Related Quotes
Yet we act as if simple cause and effect is at work. We push to find the one simple reason things have gone wrong. We look for the one action, or the one person, that created this mess. As soon as we find someone to blame, we act as if we've solved the problem.
The planet isn't improvising, it's creating dynamic tensions between complex living systems in a planetary choreography, a balancing act between physical, chemical, biological, environmental, and human components.
We had global warming between 1940 and 1998. Since then, we haven't had a rise in temperature. That doesn't mean we don't have a problem. If that problem is going to be solved, it ought to be solved by an international treaty.
Clipper took a relatively simple problem, encryption between two phones, and turned it into a much more complex problem, encryption between two phones but that can be decrypted by the government under certain conditions and, by making the problem that complicated, that made it very easy for subtle flaws to slip by unnoticed. I think it demonstrated that this problem is not just a tough public policy problem, but it's also a tough technical problem.
Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.
There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge. People solve such problems every day. They solve them, and having solved them push on.
The point is there is more information now then you can pass along comfortably in an oral tradition, say a strictly speaking culture. That is a problem.
In the 1920s dramatists attacked their subjects as if the inequities could be resolved. Some of the traditional optimism of America lurked behind most of the early plays. But not now. There is no conviction now that the problem will be solved.
History is now strictly organized, powerfully disciplined, but it possesses only a modest educational value and even less conscious social purpose.
It's a different world now and as we see with footballers and everybody else, and the fall from grace of any sportsman, it's a difficult balancing act now of going out and being nice to the general public and being very wary.
We took over with 'Leverage' three warehouses, and now four with 'The Librarians,' and turned them into proper sound stages with sound doors and all the lights. We now have control of four real, proper-sized sound stages. The problem is they're dark and empty half of the year because there aren't enough productions coming into Oregon.
If God 'foresaw' our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose god is outside and above the Time-line... You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He know your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but the moment at which you have done it is already 'NOW' for Him.
Any attempt to reduce the complex properties of biological organisms or of nervous systems or of human brains to simple physical and chemical systems is foolish.
Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they're the West's whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.
Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.
People always tell me I'm too modest, and that I'm allowed to tell myself now and then that I'm good at something. Well okay then, the bathroom is very (beautiful) clean right now.
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