Carlo Rovelli: The Order of Time

The difference between past and future, between cause and effect, between memory and hope, between regret and intention... in the elementary laws that describe the mechanisms of the world, there is no such difference.

Don`t take your intuitions and ideas to be "natural": they are often the products of the ideas of audacious thinkers who came before us.

Slow, technical, cultural, and artistic advances made by innumerable workshops of painters and artisans were necessary before the Sistine Chapel was possible. But in the end, it was Michelangelo who painted it.

That which seems intuitive to us now is the result of scientific and philosophical elaborations in the past.

Abstract thought can anticipate by centuries hypotheses that find a use - or confirmation - in scientific inquiry.