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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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 -
To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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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.
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
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It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
B. F. SKINNER