The Evolutionary Future of Man (1993)
“Philosophy is possible only because the material ensemble called “man” is endowed with very sophisticated software. But also, this software, human language, is dependent on the condition of the hardware. Now: the hardware will be consumed in the solar explosion, taking philosophical thought with it (along with all other thought) as it goes up in flames. So the problem of the technological sciences can be stated as follows: how can we provide this software with a hardware that is independent of the conditions of life on earth? That is: how can we make thought without a body possible?”
Source: Thought Without a Body? (1994), p. 291
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Jean-François Lyotard 26
French philosopher 1924–1998Related quotes
D.T. Ross (1989) "Appendix B: Understanding: The Key to Software" in: Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council Scaling Up: A Research Agenda for Software Engineering. p. 66 (cited on p. 3).
2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero
Steve Ballmer says Microsoft plans to compete with Apple in every market http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/10/steve_ballmer_says_microsoft_plans_to_compete_with_apple_in_every_market in AppleInsider (10 July 2012)
2010s
Source: 1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970), p. 180
“Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.”
[A Plea for Lean Software, http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/mags/co/&toc=comp/mags/co/1995/02/r2toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/2.348001, 2007-01-13, Computer, 1995, February, 28, 2, pp. 64-68]
Variation: Software is decelerating faster than hardware is accelerating.
aka "Wirth's law"
“The hardware world tends to move into software form at the speed of light.”
1970s, The Education of Mike McManus, TVOntario, December 28 1977
“Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 227