Vernor Vinge: Quotes about nature

Vernor Vinge is American mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction writer. Explore interesting quotes on nature.

Vernor Vinge: 68 quotes1 like

“Over the last few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets, of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such—and those living more peaceably around them—we say look out on the universe. It does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 35 (pp. 483-484).

“Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.”

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 32 (p. 397).

“We can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.”

The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)