Arthur Eddington Quotes
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Theological or anti-theological argument to prove or disprove the existence of a deity seems to me to occupy itself largely with skating among the difficulties caused by our making a fetish of this word existence.
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Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.
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The laws of logic do not prescribe the way our minds think; they prescribe the way our minds ought to think.
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We do not want a religion that deceives us for our own good.
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If in a community of the blind one man suddenly received the gift of sight, he would have much to tell which would not be at all scientific.
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Objections to religious mysticism lose their force if they can equally be turned against natural mysticism.
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If God is as real as the shadow of the Great War on Armistice Day, need we seek further reason for making a place for God in our thoughts and lives? We shall not be concerned if the scientific explorer reports that he is perfectly satisfied that he has got to the bottom of things without having come across either.
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We have found a strange foot-print on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.
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Wind, earthquake, fire-meteorology, seismology, physics-pass in review, as we have been reviewing the natural forces of evolution; the Lord was not in them. Afterwards, a stirring, an awakening in the organ of the brain, a voice which asks 'What doest thou here?'
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Ch. 2 Relativity
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Study of the scientific world cannot prescribe the orientation of something which is excluded from the scientific world.
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Materialism in its literal sense is long since dead. ...It is ...belief in the universal dominance of scientific law which is nowadays generally meant by materialism.
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Matter and all else that is in the physical world have been reduced to a shadowy symbolism.
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The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions... For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.
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What I may attempt is to dispel the feeling that in using the eye of the body or the eye of the soul, and incorporating what is thereby revealed in our conception of reality, we are doing something irrational and disobeying the leading of truth which as scientists we are pledged to serve.
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Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into sub-consciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite but yet continuous with our mental nature. This I take it be the world-stuff.
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pp. 56–57
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Ninety-nine people out of a hundred have not seriously considered what they mean by the term 'exist' nor how a thing qualifies itself to be labelled real.
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Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
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There once was a brainy baboon,Who always breathed down a bassoon,For he said, 'It appearsThat in billions of yearsI shall certainly hit on a tune'.
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Schrödinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory, but a dodge - and a very good dodge too.
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Consciousness is not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions. ...there is another outlook than the scientific one, because in practice a more transcendental outlook is almost universally admitted. ...who does not prize these moments that reveal to us the poetry of existence?
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Science has an important part to play in our everyday existence, and there is far too much neglect of science; but its intention is to supplement not to supplant the familiar outlook.
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Our system of philosophy is itself on trial; it must stand or fall according as it is broad enough to find room for this experience as an element of life.