Such - Quotes
In the development of mathematical ideas, one important initial driving force has always been to find mathematical structures that accurately mirror the behaviour of the physical world. But it is normally not possible to examine the physical world itself in such precise detail that appropriately clear-cut mathematical notions can be abstracted directly from it. Instead, progress is made because mathematical notions tend to have a "momentum" of their own that appears to spring almost entirely from within the subject itself. Mathematical ideas develop, and various kinds of problem seem to arise naturally.
How do I really feel about the possibility that all my actions, and those of my friends, are ultimately governed by mathematical principles (...)? I can live with that. I would, indeed, prefer to have these actions controlled by something residing in some (...) aspect of Plato`s fabulous mathematical world than to have them be subject to the kind of simplistic base motives, such as pleasure-seeking, personal greed, or aggressive violence, that many would argue to be the implications of a strictly scientific standpoint.
If love [...] is the reason for being moral, what relevance does the existence or non-existence of a deity have? Why can we not be prompted to the ethical life by our own charitable feelings? The existence of a god adds nothing to our moral situation, other than an invisible policeman who sees what we do (even in privacy and under cover of night), and a threat of post-mortem terrors if we misbehave. Such additions are hardly an enrichment of the moral life, since the underpinning they offer consists of fear and threats of punishment: which is exactly what, among other things, the moral life seeks to free us from.
No matter how unlikely an event is, it doesn`t mean that a supernatural explanation would be more likely, especially when you consider the fact that in order for us to accept such an explanation, we have to agree that scientific models of nature that have consistently and accurately explained and predicted many natural events are completely wrong simply because we have witnessed an unlikely event.
A difference between an atheist and a person of faith is that an atheist is willing to revise their belief (if provided sufficient evidence); the faithful permit no such revision.
I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it`s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.
It is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment; it breaks whenever they touch it. Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold.
I do not fear death. I fear suffering. And I fear old age, though less so now that I am witnessing the tranquil and pleasant old age of my father. I am afraid of frailty, and of the absence of love. But death does not alarm me. It did not scare me when I was young, and I thought at the time that this was because it was such a remote prospect. But now, at sixty, the fear has yet to arrive. I love life, but life is also struggle, suffering, pain. I think of death as akin to a well-earned rest.
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.
From the moment we are born we are presented with absolute facts rather than situated ones. We aren`t taught that distinctions such as young and old or healthy and unhealthy are social constructions and that their meaning depends on context. We are conditioned to learn about and see the world as a set of facts, such as 1 + 1 = 2. The world is far more subtle than such facts allow, and we should have learned that 1 + 1=2 only if we are using the base 10 number system, but that it equals 10 if the number system is base 2, and that 1 + 1 = 1 if we are adding one wad of chewing gum to one wad of chewing gum.
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
Experience teaches, [...] that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can misinterpret it.