New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
Arthur C. Clarke Quotes
The urge to explore, to discover, to “follow knowledge like a sinking star,” is a primary human impulse that needs, and can receive, no further justification than its own existence. The search for knowledge, said a modern Chinese philosopher, is a form of play. If this be true, then the spaceship, when it comes, will […]
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
There is a type of mind that will believe anything if it is sufficiently fantastic, and it is a waste of time arguing with it. No one has ever received much thanks for exposing credulity.
Ockham’s Principle à “Plurality should not be assumed without necessity” à favors the hypothesis of a single Creator. The “infinite regress” objection à “Who created the Creator?” à may be taken care of (translation: swept under the carpet) by a useful recent invention. Welcome to the Singularity.
I have encountered a few “creationists” and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were really mad, or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer […]
(Question: You don’t believe in organized religion, yet a major theme in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God.) Yes, in a way – a quest for ultimate values, whatever they are. My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion to ultimate truth that it represents.
Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals with out the software.
Without knowing it, I became a logical positivist at about the age of ten. Every Sunday, I was supposed to make the two-mile walk to the local Church of England à it was a long time before I discovered there was any other variety à to attend a service for the village youth. To encourage […]
A man I admire, who has held the highest medical position in the United States, recently declared, “There are no atheists at the bedside of a dying child.” It is a compassionate statement, nobly expressed, with which every humane person must sympathize. But, with all respect, it is simply untrue. Nor have I ever felt […]
