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. SKINNERThe 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. SKINNERThose who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
B. F. SKINNERWhen we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNERA person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
B. F. SKINNERBut 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. SKINNERTeachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. SKINNERThe consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. SKINNERSomehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERAt this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
B. F. SKINNERUnable 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. SKINNERWe do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SKINNERIf freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
B. F. SKINNERTo say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNERI’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNER…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNERIn a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
B. F. SKINNER