A computation is a process that obeys finitely describable rules.

Think of a field of daisies: they bloom, they wither, and in the spring they grow again. Who wants to see the same stupid daisy year after year, especially with a bunch of crappy iron-lung-type equipment bolted to it?

It's soothing to realize that my mind's processes are inherently uncontrollable.

In any case, A New Kind of Science is a wonderful book, and I'm still absorbing its teachings.

Some ideas you have to chew on, then roll them around a lot, play with them before you can turn them into funky science fiction.

I am, as it were, an eye that the cosmos uses to look at itself. The Mind is not mine alone; the Mind is everywhere.

What is the shape of space? Is it flat, or is it bent? Is it nicely laid out, or is it warped and shrunken? Is it finite, or is it infinite? Which of the following does space resemble more: (a) a sheet of paper, (b) an endless desert, (c) a soap bubble, (d) a doughnut, (e) an Escher drawing, (f) an ice cream cone, (g) the branches of a tree, or (h) a human body?