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Knowledge and Uncertainty

Started by Unbeliever, October 18, 2006, 03:34:20 pm

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Unbeliever

October 18, 2006, 03:34:20 pm Last Edit: January 25, 2007, 10:53:37 am by Unbeliever
Quote from: Peter De Vries, [i]Let Me Count the Ways[/i] (1965)The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.


Quote from: Richard P. FeynmanIn its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.


Quote from: Richard P. FeynmanI can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.


Quote from: J.B.S. Haldane, [i]Possible Worlds and Other Papers[/i] (1927)I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.


Quote from: Eden Phillpotts, in [i]The World Within the World[/i] by John D. Barrow (1988)The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow stronger.


Quote from: Sir Karl Popper, [i]Conjectures and Refutations[/i]Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.


Quote from: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, [i]Emile[/i] (1762)Nature does not deceive us; it is we who deceive ourselves.


Quote from: Hyman Levy, [i]The Universe of Science[/i] (1933)Truth is a dangerous word to incorporate within the vocabulary of science. It drags with it, in its train, ideas of permanence and immutability that are foreign to the spirit of a study that is essentially a historically changing movement, and that relies so much on practical examination within restricted circumstances....Truth is an absolute notion that science, which is not concerned with any such permanency, had better leave alone.


Quote from: Albert CamusStupidity has a knack of getting its way.


Quote from: Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense News BriefingAs we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.

"Some say God is living there [in space]. I was looking around very attentively, but I did not see anyone there. I did not detect either angels or gods....I don't believe in God. I believe in man - his strength, his possibilities, his reason."
Gherman Titov, Soviet cosmonaut, in The Seattle Daily Ti