Some of us, perhaps all of us, believe that it is legitimate to kill enemy soldiers in a war, as if war were a special circumstance that shrinks the … - Douglas Hofstadter

Just as science is permeated with 'conceptual revolution' on all levels at all times, so the thinking of individuals is shot through and through with creative and new acts. Computer programs today do not yet seem to produce many small creations. Most of what they do is quite 'mechanical' still. That just testifies to the fact that they are not close to simulating the way we think–but they are getting closer.

Perhaps what differentiates highly creative ideas from ordinary ones is some combined sense of beauty, simplicity, and harmony.

We have a very hard time “seeing” our cognitive activity because it is the medium in which we swim. The attempt to put our finger on what counts in any given situation leads us at times to making connections between situations that are enormously different on their surface and at other times to distinguishing between situations that on first glance seem nearly identical. Our constant jockeying back and forth among our categories runs the gamut from the most routine behaviors to the most creative ones.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.