History Quotes / YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm

-->--'''West Jackson''' and '''Robert Jensen''', "[[https://www.abc.net.au/religion/a-creaturely-worldview-can-help-us-face-ecological-crises/11040686 Let's get "creaturely": A new worldview can help us face our ecological crises]]." [[Creator/TheABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] (April 23, 2019).

-->--'''Thomas W. Murphy''', "[[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/inexhaustible-flows/ Inexhaustible Flows?]]". ''Do the Math'' (February 20, 2024)

-->--'''Thomas W. Murphy''' "[[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/inexhaustible-flows/ Inexhaustible Flows?]]". ''Do the Math'' (February 20, 2024)

-->--'''Thomas W. Murphy''' "[[dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/inexhaustible-flows/ Inexhaustible Flows?]]". ''Do the Math'' (February 20, 2024)

-->--'''Thomas W. Murphy'' "[[dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/inexhaustible-flows/ Inexhaustible Flows?]]". ''Do the Math'' (February 20, 2024)

->Science has never been as unbiased as it would like to be — how could it? Skewing results is easily noticed, and rightfully condemned — as happened with such forgeries as Piltdown Man. Much more insidious is a lack of curiousity. We do not question recieved wisdom, and what we do not question we cannot understand.

->The special human traits [...] which enabled us to diversify culturally and occupationally while remaining biologically one species, did cause human beings to become increasingly interdependent. On that point [Émile] Durkheim was right, but in the final decade of the 19th century, he was unable to foresee how far this interdependence would have been carried by the beginning of the 21st century. ''Homo sapiens''[='=] powers of foresight may be greater than those of pre-human species, but they are not unlimited. Like all other species, because of the very nature of natural selection, we tend to be preoccupied with the here and now.

->We can't be sure what kind of beings a divine being would be. The only certain thing is that their plans of consciousness would be well beyond our own, and any human mind trying to comprehend it [[GoMadFromTheRevelation would be damaged to the point of implosion]]. There's no way for us to sustain enough damage to reach a similar level of consciousness. You could say that the existence of those beings would be a catastrophe for humanity itself.\\
-->--'''About the great one 1''', ''VideoGame/SaviorOfTheAbyss''

->In promoting the cut and dried, dissected, abstracted, tidy realm of science, we can lose the ability to celebrate the wonder, mystery, and awe of complexity and relationship that defy simple frameworks. The artificial, rectilinear, ordered, Cartesian world we construct around ourselves alienates us from more durable but messy realities. We infantilize ourselves by insisting on unambiguous truth. What is the one right way to: live; eat; exercise; socialize; earn; recycle; energize; travel? What’s the right solution to climate change? What is the right set of human rights? What’s the right approach to the Israel/Palestine situation? Science has trained us to expect correct, repeatable solutions that can be confirmed by a peek at the back of the book. Complex relationships often have no right answer, in which case it is counterproductive to cast around seeking one. We are conditioned to be attracted to authoritative answers, and might as a whole lack the poise to admit that many real-world situations will never be reduced to black and white; right and wrong.\\
Science’s success has produced an expectation of unlimited understanding. A sort-of fetishism arises. It’s intoxicating to think that we’re on the path to knowing everything, like gods. Yet, the best answer to almost any question a six-year-old will ask is: we don’t really know. Why do we sleep? What do dreams do? Do all animals have feelings? Do chickadees ever laugh, in their way? What is it like to be a kelp plant? Why is there a universe at all? Are there aliens kind-of like us? Why do tears accompany crying? If sneezing and coughing don’t happen during sleep, are they ever really necessary? What is time?\\

-->-->'''Thomas W. Murphy''', "[[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/11/putting-science-in-its-place/ Putting Science in Its Place]]". ''Do the Math'' (November 28, 2023).

-> Science is a luxury of highly functional societies. It is no coincidence that scientific advance is most rapid in this day and age when surplus energy is at its peak. How many computer records, tapes, CDROMs, etc., risk destruction or degradation in a collapse—even if it lasts only a century? In the more dismal collapse scenarios, how many science journals are burned for warmth?

->Science is a pursuit of luxury, borne by the citizenry out of a sense of goodwill, curiosity, and promise. It has served as a catalyst to economic growth not only by paving the way to a world full of gizmos and new capabilities, but also through the development of sophisticated methods for locating underground resources in the form of energy and materials. As long as science keeps it up, everyone is happy. But as the century wears on, the words “can’t,” “won’t,” and “shouldn’t” will likely appear more often in connection with science. Not so popular with the peoples.\\

->...fossil energy has subsidised a tremendous amount of science and art, expanding dramatically what we know about the world and building an expansive trove of stories about it. But rather than imagining how we might use that energy to build a sustainable future, we have rushed to use it in ways that enriched some quickly, impoverished others slowly and left us facing a future that is speculative, not guaranteed. As we come to the end of the fossil-fuel epoch, as a species we seem to lack the collective imagination to break free.