A Quote by Daniel Dennett
In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.
Related Quotes
Now, there is something else interesting here, is this thing called self-determinism and pan-determinism. We have found that there is something stands as a barrier between the ability of a person to be self-determined and the condition he is in, and that is willingness to be controlled. As long as a person will resist control, then everything that comes along which threatens to control him can do so; and thus you have aberration. And until he has a total tolerance of control, he cannot be self-determined or pan-determined.
A Wolf eats sheep but now and then; Ten thousands are devour'd by men. An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretend friend is worse.
We are at war - undeclared and of such a subtle nature that few have noticed - but war nevertheless. It is a cyberwar on many fronts, in which it is difficult to identify who is friend and who is foe. I will predict now, as unintelligible as it may seem, that Anonymous will turn out to be more friend than foe.
An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
What I'm looking for in my career, you know? You're looking for those lightning bolts of inspiration where someone says something that sparks an idea or suggests something strange.
Barack Obama hasn't kept us safe. The problem is we had an attack in San Bernardino. And we were paying attention to the most important issue we have faced in a decade since 9/11, and then all the talk was about this proposal, which isn't going to happen.
Everybody was kung-fu fighting, those kids were fast as lightning. In fact, it was a little bit frightening, make sure you have expert timing.
I enjoy what I do on the field. In fact, I need it. But I don't have a problem separating my on-field life from my off-field life.
You never realize how much you value something until you are faced with the prospect of losing it.
Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.
Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.
In short, evolution is as close to being a scientific fact as is possible for any theory, given that science is open - ended and no one can predict with certainty what may change in the future. The prospect that evolution by natural selection, at least as a broad mechanism, will be overthrown in the future is about as likely as the prospect of finding out some day that the Earth is really flat. Unfortunately, those who regard these scientific facts as a threat to faith have chosen to distort and misrepresent them to the public.
Dear is my friend--yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good:
My friend shows what I can do, and my foe what I should.
It’s hard to think of another field in which experience is considered a liability and those who know the least about the nuts and bolts of an enterprise are embraced as experts.
I think America has dealt with - I mean, this is simplistic, and of course I don't live in America - but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation to dislike those who are better off or be frightened of those who are worse off.
Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
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