Computation Quotes - Page 3

• Computation involves going from a question to an answer. Mathematics involves going from an answer to a question.

  Peter Hilton

  Answers, Mathematics

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• I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.

  Adam Smith

  Mean, Political, Arithmetic

  Adam Smith (2007). “The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With an introduction by Jonathan B. Wight, University of Richmond”, p.474, Harriman House Limited

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• Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Ignorance, Acceptance, Odds

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1421, Random House

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• The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate.

  Steven Pinker

  Culture, May, Superstitions

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.66, Penguin

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• The more we learn about AI and about how the brain works, the more amazing the brain seems. Just the sheer amount of computation it does is truly incredible, especially for a couple of pounds of meat.

  Stuart J. Russell

  Couple, Brain, Meat

  "Intelligent robots don't need to be conscious to turn against us". Interview with Guia Marie Del Prado, www.businessinsider.com. August 5, 2015.

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• A lot of people talk about sometime around 2030, machines will be more powerful than the human brain, in terms of the raw number of computations they can do per second. But that seems completely irrelevant. We don't know how the brain is organized, how it does what it does.

  Stuart J. Russell

  Powerful, Numbers, People

  "Intelligent robots don't need to be conscious to turn against us". Interview with Guia Marie Del Prado, August 9, 2015.

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• We must pay close attention to the signals our body sends - the aches and pains, digestions and indigestions, increased energies and exhaustions. Our body sends us signals about the correct 'spelling' of our lives. These sensations are the sum of complex inner computations that we must learn to interpret.

  Susan Collins

  Pain, Body, Pay

  Susan Collins (1996). “Our Children Are Watching: Ten Skills for Leading the Next Generation to Success”, Barrytown/ Station Hill Press

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• Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding.

  William Thurston

  Science, Numbers, Understanding

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• That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Gratitude, Kindness, Mistake

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• In almost every computation a great variety of arrangements for the succession of the processes is possible, and various considerations must influence the selections amongst them for the purposes of a calculating engine. One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation.

  Ada Lovelace

  Essentials, Purpose, Influence

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• I've been asked to explain why I don't worry much about the topics of privacy threat...One reason is that these scenarios seem to assume that there will be large, monolithic bureaucracies...that are capable of harnessing computers for one-way surveillance of an unsuspecting populace. I've come to feel that computation just doesn't work that way. Being afraid of monolithic organizations especially when they have computers, is like being afraid of really big gorillas especially when they are on fire.

  Bruce Sterling

  Fire, Organization, Worry

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• If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular side. So you can calculate the risk. But, in the stock market, such computations are bull - you don't even know how many sides the dice have!

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Odds, Risk, Investing

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• Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is notas efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain's strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.

  Jeremy Campbell

  Strong, Memories, Hands

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• I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Art, Play, World

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• Human beings are distinguished by a capacity for experience as well as by their behavior, and homosexuality is as much a matter ofemotion as of genital manipulation.... As we each examine our own sense of identity we realize how much more complex is the question of homosexuality than a mere Kinsey-like computation of orgasms.

  Dennis Altman

  Identity, Matter, Manipulation

  Dennis Altman (1974). “Homosexual; oppression and liberation”, Lane, Allen

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• Perhaps some day in the dim future it will be possible to advance the computations faster than the weather advances and at a cost less than the saving to mankind due to the information gained. But that is a dream.

  Lewis Fry Richardson

  Dream, Weather, Information

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• Upon the present theological computation, ten souls must be lost for one that is saved. At which rate of reckoning, heaven can raise but its cohorts while hell commands its legions. From which sad account it would appear, that, though our Saviour had conquered death by the resurrection, he had not yet been able to overcome sin by the redemption.

  Laurence Sterne

  Heaven, Soul, Overcoming

  Laurence Sterne (1814). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: With a Life of the Author”, p.271

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• Mathematics is no more computation than typing is literature.

  John Allen Paulos

  Teaching, Math, Literature

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• When the Idea, of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination... let that time be employed in making a just Computation between, the duration of the Pleasure, and that of the Repentance sure to follow it.

  Epictetus

  Ideas, Imagination, Duration

  "Epictetus his morals: with Simplicius his comment".

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