To act coolly intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man - and also a nation.

I have three brothers and they're all into computers. They're all intellects. My mother would pay me a quarter a page to read a book and I couldn't make 50 cents. I just couldn't do it.

To me there is something superbly symbolic in the fact that an astronaut sent up as assistant to a series of computers found that he worked more accurately and more intelligently than they. Inside the capsule man is still in charge.

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

I shall suggest on the contrary that all communication relies to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell and that all our knowledge of mental processes like feelings or conscious intellectual activities is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.

Just as characteristic perhaps is the intellectual interdependence created through the development of the modern media of communication: post telegraph telephone and popular press.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

The fact is that a car used by Gerry Adams and myself during the course of the Mitchell review was bugged by elements within British military intelligence.

Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.