“No, George said, you don’t understand. The pinball machine--any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade--is so remarkable, so fine, so shrewdly threaded. It is already beautiful in necessity and sufficiency of wire, connection, possibility.”

— Grace Paley

"This Is a Story about My Friend George, the Toy Inventor"

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Grace Paley 31

American writer and activist 1922–2007

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"This Is a Story about My Friend George, the Toy Inventor"

“[Computer] programs to demonstrate Darwinian evolution are akin to a pinball machine. The steel ball bounces around differently every time but eventually falls down the little hole behind the flippers.”

Robert J. Marks II (1950) American electrical engineering researcher and intelligent design advocate

It's a lot easier to play pinball than it is to make a pinball machine. (A comment concerning the difficulty of a "search for a good Darwinian search.")
Computer programs, including all of the models of Darwinian evolution of which I am aware, perform the way their programmers intended. Doing so requires the programmer infuse information about the program's goal. You can't write a good program without [doing so].
Your chances of winning the lottery are about the same whether or not you buy a ticket. It's better … if you give your money to me and I'll decide whether or not to give it back.
From the viewpoint of computer simulation, our universe does not contain the probabilistic resources to get a meaningful result for even a moderately sized unassisted [Darwinian] search. In fact, if you take ten to the one thousand of our universes in what is sometimes referred to as the multiverse, the probabilistic resources don't exist there either.
Let's abandon labels and pursue the truth no matter where it leads. Don't entrench yourself in a paradigm and claim a corner on truth. Many who have done so in history have been shown to be foolish.
"Darwin as the Pinball Wizard: Talking Probability with Robert Marks,", From an interview with Robert Crowther of the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute, March 03, 2010, 2010-05-03 http://www.idthefuture.com/2010/03/darwin_as_the_pinball_wizard_t.html,

““But sociopaths don’t see other people as people. Something’s wrong with their wiring,” Nicole said. “They don’t have any empathy, and they don’t feel fear. So they don’t feel guilty when they kill. If anything, they feel powerful.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 14

“If you say you believe in God, but you don’t really believe in God, then how you could you possibly be trying to fool God? Wouldn’t you have to believe there is a god if you’re going to try and deceive him? And what is the deception? Are you trying to trick God into thinking you believe in him? If you don’t believe in God then that’s not even possible. So already the Qur’an reveals sufficient absurdity to prove that it cannot have been authored by any god. Seriously, could this be any less ridiculous if it were written in Arabic?”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“A structure made up of fine threads, so many and so fine that even the strongest magnification of the microscope was hardly sufficient to allow all of them to be seen clearly. Some of the threads ran together in bundles and in layers in specific directions; others lay seemingly randomly distributed every which way through the tissue. Embedded in this felted mass of fibers, it was possible to discern spherical structures, the nuclei of the nerve cells…”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Braitenberg (1948), quoted in: Elke Maier (2012) " Spying on God http://www.mpg.de/6348834/S005_Flashback_086-087.pdf" in Max Planck Research, March 2012
Description of Braitenberg's first experience observing brain tissue under a microscope as medical student in Rome.

“Without your love
It's a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It's a melody played in a penny arcade.”

Yip Harburg (1896–1981) American song lyricist

"It's Only a Paper Moon" (1933) (co-written with Billy Rose).
Context: Without your love
It's a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It's a melody played in a penny arcade. It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me.

“A Computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines.”

Alan Cox (1968) British computer programmer

Re: Alan Cox quote? (was: Re: accounting for threads) http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0106.2/0405.html.

“You can predict exactly what a machine will do if you have sufficient knowledge of it. A machine cannot go beyond the limitations of its design. The man-machine fears death because a machine cannot see beyond its own destruction.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

“To me politics is just a matter of getting the engineering right. If you have a machine which functions properly without much attention, then it’s obviously a good machine. That’s what politics should be about. And if the machine has simple working parts which any layman can understand, then it’s, as it were, your democratic machine. Am I right or am I wrong?”
“Crazy,” said Makhno, and scratched his nose.
“What?”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

“You’re not right or wrong. You’re crazy.”
Book 2, Chapter 1 “The Camp on Rishiri” (p. 342)
Oswald Bastable, The Steel Tsar (1981)

“No, George said, you don’t understand. The pinball machine--any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade--is so remarkable, so fine, so shrewdly threaded. It is already beautiful in necessity and sufficiency of wire, connection, possibility.”

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Grace Paley 31

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