#knowledge

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#brain #conjecture #consciousness #darwinism #evolution

Knowing is not enough. You must accept My blessings in order to attain a better life. You must embrace a higher level of consciousness. ↗

— Mary B. Morrison

#life

A book is a product of a pact with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#faust #immortality #knowledge #life

From this point of view, science - the real game in town - is rhetoric, a series of efforts to persuade relevant social actors that one's manufactured knowledge is a route to a desired form of very objective power. ↗

— Donna Haraway

#objectivity #partial-perspective #rhetoric #science-studies #situated-knowledge

Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know. ↗

— Ted Chiang

#knowledge #science-fiction #sf #writing #nature

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. ↗

— Louis Pasteur

#belongs #country #humanity #illuminates #knowledge

Whereas a novice makes moves until he gets checkmated (proof), a Grand Master realizes 20 moves in advance that it’s futile to continue playing (conceptualizing). ↗

— Bill Gaede

#extinction #gaede #hypothesis #knowledge #prediction

Neglect of mathematics work injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy. ↗

— Roger Bacon

#mathematics #sciences #science

I was drawn to horses as if they were magnets. It was in my blood. I must have inherited from my grandfather a genetic proclivity toward the equine species. Perhaps there's a quirk in the DNA that makes horse people different from everyone else, that instantly divides humanity into those who love horses and the others, who simply don't know. ↗

— Allan J. Hamilton

#differences #dna #genetics #horses #humanity

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves. ↗

— Richard P. Feynman

#knowledge #rationalism #science #self-delusion #science