gwern comments on Rationality Quotes - June 2009 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: pjeby 14 June 2009 10:00PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (168)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: gwern 16 June 2009 02:35:05PM *  8 points [-]

"A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it."

Marvin Minsky, "Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas"