As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.
ALAN LIGHTMANIn fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about a particular arrangement of neurons that gives rise to consciousness. Our consciousness.
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We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.
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It is true that the arts at MIT don’t have the same amount of funding or same status as the sciences or engineering.
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That’s an exciting thing. In a class of fifteen there are usually two very good writers, equal to good student writers anywhere in the country. Those two make the class wonderful.
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Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago?
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It’s exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see that developing and helping to nurture that.
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Scientists will forever have to live with the fact that their product is, in the end, impersonal.
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So it’s really about two and a half months that I’ll feel like I can recover some silence in my life…which is so hard to find.
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Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other gods conflict with the assumptions of science.
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I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds.
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One day I’m going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do….is to watch these birds.
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While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.
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After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived.
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I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
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Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.
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