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If You Understand Something In Only One Way, Then You Don't Really Understand It At All. The Secret Of What Anything Means To Us Depends On How We've Connected It To All Other Things We Know. Well-connected Representations Let You Turn Ideas Around In Your Mind, To Envision Things From Many Perspectives Until You Find One That Works For You. And That's What We Mean By Thinking!

-Marvin Minsky

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If You Understand Something

Marvin Minsky

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If You Understand Something In Only One Way, Then You Don't Really Understand It At All. The Secret Of What Anything Means To Us Depends On How We've Connected It To All Other Things We Know. Well-connected Representations Let You Turn Ideas Around In Your Mind, To Envision Things From Many Perspectives Until You Find One That Works For You. And That's What We Mean By Thinking!

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Each Part Of The Mind Sees Only A Little Of What Happens In Some Others, And That Little Is Swiftly Refined, Reformulated And "represented." We Like To Believe That These Fragments Have Meanings In Themselves - Apart From The Great Webs Of Structure From Which They Emerge - And Indeed This Illusion Is Valuable To Us Qua Thinkers - But Not To Us As Psychologists - Because It Leads Us To Think That Expressible Knowledge Is The First Thing To Study.

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If You Understand Something In Only One Way, Then You Don't Really Understand It At All. The Secret Of What Anything Means To Us Depends On How We've Connected It To All Other Things We Know. Well-connected Representations Let You Turn Ideas Around In Your Mind, To Envision Things From Many Perspectives Until You Find One That Works For You. And That's What We Mean By Thinking!

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Everything Is Similar If You're Willing To Look Far Out Of Focus.

How Many Processes Are Going On, To Keep That Teacup Level In Your Grasp? There Must Be A Hundred Of Them.

An Ethicist Is Somebody Who Sees Something Wrong With Whatever You Have In Mind.

I Bet The Human Brain Is A Kludge

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Daniel Dennett Is Our Best Current Philosopher. He Is The Next Bertrand Russell. Unlike Traditional Philosophers, Dan Is A Student Of Neuroscience, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, And Psychology. He's Redefining And Reforming The Role Of The Philosopher.

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