Quotes about Computation

If you understand McCarthy's eval, you understand more than just a stage in the history of languages. These ideas are still the semantic core of Lisp today. So studying McCarthy's original paper shows us, in a sense, what Lisp really is. It's not something that McCarthy designed so much as something he discovered. It's not intrinsically a language for AI or for rapid prototyping, or any other task at that level. It's what you get (or one thing you get) when you try to axiomatize computation.

Counting in octal is just likst counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs.

ALIQUANT  (A'LIQUANT)   adj.[aliquantus, Lat.]Parts of a number, which, however repeated, will never make up the number exactly; as, 3 is an aliquant of 10, thrice 3 being 9, four times 3 making 12.

The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move in the world… we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains.