We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton.I've never regarded his philosophical ability in high esteem but he expresses himself very well. The quote is of course only applicable for those who believe that's there's no ultimate purpose or goal in life and this life is all we have. Which I don't personally subscribe to, but if I did I would share Dawkins' sentiments.
We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here...
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?
Monday, 21 December 2015
Quote from Richard Dawkins
An interesting quote from Richard Dawkins book "Unweaving the Rainbow".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Claims in physics are always provisional?
Someone said on twitter/X I might be fringe here or ignorant... but I not think that ALL scientific "stuff" is provisional. The s...
-
Just reading the following article: 20 years ago, we were all set for a Y2K disaster that wasn’t Article says: Patti Duncan stockpiled ...
-
On the 13th January I discovered a lump on my neck. Eventually had an ultrasound and a fine needle aspiration. The lump was 4.2cms long and ...
-
I recently read the following article: What the Buddha Didn't Teach About Reincarnation It says: "This is not to say that “we” ...
-
It keeps being claimed (eg David Papineau, Sean Carroll et al ) that if consciousness caused anything in the brain over and above physical c...
-
Yesterday I had a conversation with Claude (an LLM similar to ChatGPT) about hemispherectomies (permanently removing half of one's brain...
-
Someone on twitter/X asked the following question: A mathematician emerges from a cave, hands you the photo below, and asks "Will a c...
-
I bought the Lenovo D32-45 PC Monitor 10 days ago (it's not available on Amazon). It cost £169.00 which I believe is about the cheapest...
-
This is a continuation of the post about my cyst. I think it's sufficiently important to warrant a separate post. After asking many que...
-
There's 2 possibilities: a) This is the only life there is. When we die we simply cease to exist. Our lives and the Universe are, in a...
-
An interesting Guardian article : It is worth reminding ourselves that the vast majority of our ancestors saw the world in a very different...
No comments:
Post a Comment