Looking back on his inventions, a common theme since that first music composer has been pattern recognition which he believes is the essence of human thinking and the essence of the better-than-human artificially-enhanced intelligence that we are evolving toward.

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This is because new electronic technologies deal with the very essence of human society: communication between people.

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"Our dream is to uncover the essence of what makes us human, " Mr. Allen said.

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They are, in essence, products of the human mind rather than of the earth and blast furnace.

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Delvoye is no stranger to controversy: he is perhaps best known for his work Cloaca, an installation composed of a large machine reproducing the effects of the human digestive system to create, in essence, industrial faecal matter .

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The essence of democratic capitalism is not greed or rapaciousness, human emotions that have been with us since the beginning.

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First and foremost, my practice seeks out the inner life -- the essence -- of my subjects, whether they be human or inanimate.

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But no one who has been to Bruges will fail to appreciate what may be its foremost achievement: the insight with which Rodenbach has seized upon and expressed the elusive essence of an entire city, as though it had a human heart.

WSJ: Georges Rodenbach | Bruges-La-Morte | Incarnating the World Within | Masterpiece by James Gardner