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C Quotes

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All C Quotes

“Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things.”

“Can we reasonably expect happiness from an insatiable appetite which, no matter how it stuffs its belly, is still psychologically like Oliver Twist in the poorhouse, holding up an empty bowl and begging, "I want some more"? Isn't it possible that our dream of the good society contained, from the beginning, a hidden violation of the Tenth Commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"?”

“Can we say that the constitutional monarchies in Spain, Belgium or England are democratic? Those with superior chambers like the House of Lords in England, that still represent the English feudal nobility in terms of positions above regional representatives, who are in the end the representatives supposedly elected by the population. Many mechanisms exist, but they are mechanisms to preserve the power of the wealthy classes, of the bourgeois classes that hold the power and rights above the rest of the society.”

“Can we see the glowing fissure in your chest?” Simon asked. “Simon, it’s rude to bring up glowing fissures in other people’s chests,” said Clary. “What do you think they want with the Book of the White, Magnus?” Magnus turned to look at Alec. “So, you told them everything? Did you say the S-word? The R-word?” Alec rolled his eyes. “If you’re asking if I told them about Shinyun and Ragnor, I did.”

“Can we share my eyes so you can see what I see? Can we share my ears so you can hear what I hear? Can you perch on my shoulders so you can go where I go? Always in my heart, I don’t experience anything separate from you. This shared wonderment becomes doubled. This shared love becomes infinite.”

“Can we walk that thin line between constant change and continuation? And in the middle of this flux, feel gratitude but not hold on? Gratitude greases the joints to let us let go, and at the same time to stop and realize we received something. Gratitude is the most developed and mature of human emotions.”

“Can we who have had the joy of knowing that we are not orphans, that we have a Father, be indifferent to this city which asks of us, perhaps even unwittingly, without being aware of it, a hope that will help it look to the future with greater confidence and serenity? We cannot remain indifferent. . . . Words without witness are hot air. Words do not suffice. It must be the true witness that Paul speaks of.”

“Can we, with the assistance of advanced technology and neurobiological facts, create an artifact with consciousness? Perhaps not surprisingly, given the nature of the question, I have two answers for it, and one is no and the other yes. No, we have little chance of creating an artifact with anything that resembles human consciousness, conceptualized from an inner-sense perspective. Yes, we can create artifacts with the formal mechanisms of consciousness proposed in this book, and it may be possible to say that those artifacts have some kind of consciousness. Some external behaviors of artifacts with formal mechanisms of consciousness will mimic conscious behaviors and may pass a consciousness version of the Turing test. But for all the good reasons that John Searle and Colin McGinn have adduced on the matter of behavior, mind, and the Turing test, passing the test guarantees little about the artifact's mind. More to the point, the artifact's internal states may even mimic some of the neural and mental designs I propose here as a basis for consciousness. They would have a way of generating second-order knowledge, but, without the help of the nonverbal vocabulary of feeling, the knowledge would not be expressed in the manner we encounter in humans and is probably present in so many living species. Feeling is, in effect, the barrier, because the realization of human consciousness may require the existence of feelings. The "looks" of emotion can be simulated, but what feelings feel like cannot be duplicated in silicon. Feelings cannot be duplicated unless flesh is duplicated, unless the brain's actions on flesh are duplicated, unless the brain's sensing of flesh after it has been acted upon by the brain is duplicated.”