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Questioning one's own "top-level" goals always reveals the paradox-oscillation of ultimate purpose. How could one decide that a goal is worthwhile — unless one already knew what it is that is worthwhile?

— Marvin Minsky Jokes and their Relation to the Cognitive Unconscious (1980)

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More quotes by Marvin Minsky

It's harmful, when naming leads the mind to think that names alone bring meaning close.

The Society of Mind (1987)

Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

The "laws of thought" depend not only on the property of brain cells, but also on how they are connected.

The Society of Mind (1987)

There is no reason to suppose that any of these virtues carry over to the many-layered version.

Perceptrons (1988)

Every smart person wants to be corrected, not admired.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Marvin Minsky (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.