The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNERI don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
-
-
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
B. F. SKINNER -
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER -
Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
B. F. SKINNER -
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
B. F. SKINNER -
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER -
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
B. F. SKINNER -
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNER -
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER -
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER -
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER -
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER -
Men build society and society builds men.
B. F. SKINNER -
We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
B. F. SKINNER -
I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
B. F. SKINNER -
Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
B. F. SKINNER