194 Quotes Tagged: Science

Stephen, how do we know what the ultimate good of Humanity will entail? We haven't at our disposal the infinite factors that the Machine has at its! Perhaps, to give you a not unfamiliar example, our entire technical civilization has created more unhappiness and misery than it has removed. Perhaps an agrarian or pastoral civilization, with less culture and less people would be better. If so, the Machines must move in that direction, preferably without telling us, since in our ignorant prejudices we only know that what we are used to, is good — and we would then fight change. Or perhaps a complete urbanization, or a completely caste-ridden society, or complete anarchy, is the answer. We don't know. Only the Machines know, and they are going there and taking us with them.

[...] afirmações extraordinárias requerem evidência extraordinária.

The dangers that we face are part of the process, now well underway, of the unification of the planet — in language, culture, science, and commerce. They are both driven by the identical technological advances — this critical and delicate time coincides with the widespread availability of nuclear weapons. At the present rate of change, it seems likely that in the period between now and 2061, the turning point for the human species will have been reached.

If we survive until then, our passage to the next apparition of Halley's Comet should be comparatively easy. That perihelion passage will be in March 2134, when the comet will make an unusually close encounter with the Earth. It will come as close as 0.09AU or 14 million kilometers, less than half the distance of the 1910 encounter. It will then be brighter than the brightest star. If there are those to do the commemorating, the years 2061 and 2134 should be celebrated for the courage, intelligence, and common purpose of a species forced by urgent necessity to come to its senses.

Si l'on ramène les 4,5 milliards d'années de notre planète à une seule journée terrestre, en supposant que celle-ci soit apparue à 0 heure, alors la vie naît vers 5 heures du matin et se développe pendant toute la journée. Vers 20 heures seulement viennent les premiers mollusques. Puis à 23 heures arrivent les dinosaures qui disparaîtront à 23h40. Quant à nos ancêtres, ils ne débarquent enfin que dans les 5 dernières minutes avant 24 heures et ne voient leur cerveau doubler de volume que dans la toute dernière minute. La révolution industrielle n'a commencé que depuis un centième de seconde.

Whatever their neurological and molecular antecedents, hallucinations feel real. They are sought out in many cultures and considered a sign of spiritual enlightenment.

You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we.

We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.

New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology.

The theologian Meric Casaubon argued — in his 1668 book, Of Credulity and Incredulity — that witches must exist because, after all, everyone believes in them. Anything that a large number of people believe must be true.

"Cuando hablamos de la "ira" del cielo, la "agitación" del mar, la "resistencia" de los diamantes a ser tallados, la "atracción" que ejerce la Tierra sobre un asteroide cercano o la "excitación" de un átomo, de nuevo pensamos en una especie de visión animista del mundo. Estamos atribuyendo existencia real a objetos inertes. Algún nivel primitivo de nuestro pensamiento dota a la Naturaleza inanimada de vida, pasiones y premeditación."

In science we may start with experimental results, data, observations, measurements, ‘facts’. We invent, if we can, a rich array of possible explanations and systematically confront each explanation with the facts.

Um dragão que cospe fogo pelas ventas vive na minha garagem - O Mundo assombrado pelos demônios.

I know of no significant advance in science that did not require major inputs from both cerebral hemispheres. This is not true for art, where apparently there are no experiments by which capable, dedicated and unbiased observers can determine to their mutual satisfaction which works are great.

Just as there are those who accept every UFO report at face value, there are also those who dismiss the idea of alien visitation out of hand and with great passion. It is, they say, unnecessary to examine the evidence, and “unscientific” even to contemplate the issue. I once helped to organize a public debate at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science between proponent and opponent scientists of the proposition that some UFOs were spaceships; whereupon a distinguished physicist, whose judgment in many other matters I respected, threatened to sic the Vice President of the United States on me if I persisted in this madness. (Nevertheless, the debate was held and published, the issues were a little better clarified, and I did not hear from Spiro T. Agnew.)

Would not a rational society spend more on understanding and preventing, than on preparing for, the next war?