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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.
Arthur Eddington -
As truly as the mystic, the scientist is following a light; and it is not a false or an inferior light.
Arthur Eddington
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I think that science would never have achieved much progress if it had always imagined unknown obstacles hidden round every corner. At least we may peer gingerly round the corner, and perhaps we shall find there is nothing very formidable after all.
Arthur Eddington -
The chairs and tables around us which broadcast to us incessantly those signals which affect our sight and touch cannot in their nature be like unto the signals or to the sensations which the signals awake at the end of their journey.
Arthur Eddington -
To those who have any intimate acquaintance with the laws of chemistry and physics the suggestion that the spiritual world could be ruled by laws of allied character is as preposterous as the suggestion that a nation could be ruled by laws like the laws of grammar.
Arthur Eddington -
pp. 56–57
Arthur Eddington -
We have to build the spiritual world out of symbols taken from our own personality, as we build the scientific world out of the symbols of the mathematician.
Arthur Eddington -
Schrödinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory, but a dodge - and a very good dodge too.
Arthur Eddington
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Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature's experiments; but that stirring of consciousness transmutes the whole story and gives meaning to its symbolism. Symbolically it is the end, but looking behind the symbolism it is the beginning.
Arthur Eddington -
Mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience; all else is remote inference.
Arthur Eddington -
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.
Arthur Eddington -
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.
Arthur Eddington -
We are no longer tempted to condemn the spiritual aspects of our nature as illusory because of their lack of concreteness.
Arthur Eddington -
It is an astonishing feat of deciphering that we should have been able to infer an orderly scheme of natural knowledge from such indirect communication.
Arthur Eddington
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You will understand the true spirit neither of science nor of religion unless seeking is placed in the forefront.
Arthur Eddington -
The mathematics is not there till we put it there.
Arthur Eddington -
The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time. But we must presume that in some other way or aspect it can be differentiated into parts. Only here and there does it arise to the level of consciousness, but from such islands proceeds all knowledge. The latter includes our knowledge of the physical world.
Arthur Eddington -
The problem of experiences is not limited to the interpretation of sense-impressions.
Arthur Eddington -
The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
Arthur Eddington -
It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.
Arthur Eddington
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Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature.
Arthur Eddington -
Experimental Physicist Phys. I cannot imagine myself perceiving non-Euclidean space!Math. Look at the reflection of the room in a polished doorknob, and imagine yourself one of the actors in what you see going on there.
Arthur Eddington -
However closely we may associate thought with the physical machinery of the brain, the connection is dropped as irrelevant as soon as we consider the fundamental property of thought-that it may be correct or incorrect. ...that involves recognising a domain of the other type of law-laws which ought to be kept, but may be broken.
Arthur Eddington -
It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.
Arthur Eddington