From f8fec2c254eecf6d9f08528ada5f58292f4e597b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Elton, Daniel Christopher" Date: Fri, 10 May 2024 15:41:14 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] +1 --- _posts/2008-01-01-quotes.md | 870 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ _posts/2024-05-10-covid-airborne.md | 7 + _posts/quotes.md | 912 ---------------------------- 3 files changed, 877 insertions(+), 912 deletions(-) create mode 100644 _posts/2024-05-10-covid-airborne.md delete mode 100755 _posts/quotes.md diff --git a/_posts/2008-01-01-quotes.md b/_posts/2008-01-01-quotes.md index bf4004d..d956966 100644 --- a/_posts/2008-01-01-quotes.md +++ b/_posts/2008-01-01-quotes.md @@ -321,4 +321,874 @@ Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration – courage There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly. – H. L. Mencken + + +

+ + +"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." - Sophocles + + + + + + +

+ +"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."
+--Aristotle
+
+not sure why these are here, but here's a long rant by Ayn Rand:
+h
+I am referring here to romantic love, in the serious meaning of that term�as +distinguished from the superficial infatuations of those whose sense of life is +devoid of any consistent values, i.e., of any lasting emotions +other than fear. Love is a response to values. It is with a person�s sense of +life that one falls in love�with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or +way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in +love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person�s character, which +are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the +style of his soul�the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, +irreplaceable consciousness. It is one�s own sense of life that acts as the +selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one�s own basic values in the +person of another. It is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are +not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and +subconscious harmony
+Many errors and tragic disillusionments are possible in this process of +emotional recognition, since a sense of life, by itself, is not a reliable +cognitive guide. And if there are degrees of evil, then one of the most evil +consequences of mysticism�in terms of human suffering�is the belief that love is +a matter of �the heart,� not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of +reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy. Love is +the expression of philosophy�of a subconscious philosophical sum�and, +perhaps, no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious power +of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called upon to verify and +support an emotional appraisal, when love is a conscious integration of reason +and emotion, of mind and values, then�and only then�it is the greatest reward of +man�s life. -Ayn Rand
+ +The Romantic Manifesto, pg 32. + + + + + + +

Let us answer the question: �Can you measure love?� +

The concept �love� is formed by isolating two or more instances of the +appropriate psychological process, then retaining its distinguishing +characteristics (an emotion proceeding from the evaluation of an existent as a +positive value and as a source of pleasure) and omitting the object and the +measurements of the process�s intensity. +

The object may be a thing, an event, an activity, a condition or a person. +The intensity varies according to one�s evaluation of the object, as, for +instance, in such cases as one�s love for ice cream, or for parties, or for +reading, or for freedom, or for the person one marries. The concept �love� +subsumes a vast range of values and, consequently, of intensity: it extends from +the lower levels (designated by the subcategory �liking�) to the higher level +(designated by the subcategory �affection,� which is applicable only in regard +to persons) to the highest level, which includes romantic love. +

If one wants to measure the intensity of a particular instance of love, one +does so by reference to the hierarchy of values of the person experiencing it. A +man may love a woman, yet may rate the neurotic satisfactions of sexual +promiscuity higher than her value to him. Another man may love a woman, but may +give her up, rating his fear of the disapproval of others (of his family, his +friends or any random strangers) higher than her value. Still another man may +risk his life to save the woman he loves, because all his other values would +lose meaning without her. The emotions in these examples are not emotions of the +same intensity or dimension. Do not let a James Taggart type of mystic tell you +that love is immeasurable. +

 Introduction +to Objectivist Epistemology Ayn- Rand +

  + + + + + + +

+ +Existentialism
+Gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, +the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. - +Albert Camus
+
+Everything is permitted," exclaims Ivan Karamazov. That, too, smacks of the +absurd. But on condition that it not be taken in a vulgar sense. I don't know +whether or not it has been sufficiently pointed out that it is not an outburst +of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact. - Albert Camus
+
+All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences +that legitimize or cancel it. A mind imbued with the absurd merely judges that +those consequences must be considered calmly. - Albert Camus
+
+The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must +imagine Sisyphus happy. - Albert Camus
+
+Philosophy
+
+We are creatures of matter. And we should +learn to live with that fact.
+� Paul M. Churchland
+
+The reductionist worldview is chilling and impersonal. It has to be +accepted as it is, not because we like it, but because that is the way the world +works. + + + + + +"The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the +level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." - Steven Weinberg + + + +# Religion + +> "I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions +> they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect +> the young and innocent."" - Arthur C. Clarke + + +""Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever +demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they +have few followers now. +� Arthur C. Clarke +Science simply doesn�t deal +with hypotheses about a guiding intelligence, or supernatural phenomena like +miracles, because science is the search for rational explanations of natural +phenomena. We don�t reject the supernatural merely because we have an +overweening philosophical commitment to materialism; we reject it because +entertaining the supernatural has never helped us understand the +natural world. Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, +creationism � none of these perspectives has advanced our understanding +of nature by one iota.... +Scientific �truths� are +empirically supported observations agreed on by different observers. Religious +�truths,� on the other hand, are personal, unverifiable and contested by those +of different faiths. +� Jerry A. Coyne +The fear of God is not the +beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and +doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of +wisdom. +� Clarence Darrow +The modern world is the +child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and +faith. +� Clarence Darrow +  +            +At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an +intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are +experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that +Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in +the same manner and with equal force in favour of +the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the +Buddists of no God. There are also many barbarian tribes who cannot be +said with any truth to believe in what we call God: they believe indeed in +spirits or ghosts, and it can be explained, as Tyler and Herbert Spencer have +shown, how such a belief would be likely to arise. +            +Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred to, (although +I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever strongly developed in me), +to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the +soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of +a Brazilian forest, �it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher +feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.� I +well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of +his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and +feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has +become colour-blind, and the universal belief by men +of the existence of redness makes my present loss of perception of not the least +value as evidence. This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races +had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God; but we know that +this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward +convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists. +The state of mind which grand scenes formerly excited in me, and which was +intimately connected with a belief in God, did not essentially differ from that +which is often called the sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to +explain the genesis of this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an argument for +the existence of God, any more than the powerful though vague and similar +feelings excited by music. +� Charles Darwin + To invoke God as a blanket +explanation of the unexplained is to make God the friend of ignorance. If God is +to be found, it must surely be through what we discover about the world, not +what we fail to discover. +� Paul Davies +In a universe of electrons +and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people +are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won�t find +any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has +precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no +purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. +� Richard Dawkins +  +I think it�s important to +realize that when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal +intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It +is possible for one side to be simply wrong. +� Richard Dawkins +  +Science shares with religion +the claim that it answers deep questions about origins, the nature of life, and +the cosmos. But there the resemblance ends. Scientific beliefs are supported by +evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not. +� Richard Dawkins +  +If you have a faith, it is +statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents +and grandparents had. No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving +stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable +determining your religion is the accident of birth. The convictions that you so +passionately believe would have been a completely different, and largely +contradictory, set of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a +different place. Epidemiology, not evidence. +� Richard Dawkins +   +Mystery generates wonder, and wonder generates awe. The gasp can terrify or the +gasp can emancipate. As I allow myself to experience cosmic and quantum Mystery, +I join the saints and visionaries in their experience of what they called the +Divine, and then I wander back 26 centuries to embrace Lao Tzu and the first +chapter of the Tao Te Ching: +         +

  +No testimony is sufficient +to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of +such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it +endeavours to establish. +� David Hume +  +There is not to be found, in +all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such +unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all +delusion in themselves +� David Hume +  +I believe that religion, +generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind � that its +modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more +than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. +� H. L. Mencken +  +Religion is fundamentally +opposed to everything I hold in veneration � courage, clear thinking, honesty, +fairness, and above all, love of the truth. +� H. L. Mencken +  +There is, in fact, nothing +about religious opinions that entitles them to any +more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be +noticeably silly. +� H. L. Mencken + +# Life +>" A balance that does not tremble cannot weigh. A man who does not tremble cannot live.." + -- Erwin Chargaff + +>"Try to learn something about everything, and everything about something."" + -- T. H. Huxley + +>"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be +a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant. -- H. L. Mencken + +>"For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong" -- H. L. Mencken +The notion that a radical is +one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one +who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than +the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to +crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. +� H. L. Mencken +  +Men become civilized not in +proportion to their willingness to believe but in proportion to their readiness +to doubt. +� H. L. Mencken +If only it were all so +simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil +deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and +destroy them. But the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart +of every human being, and who is willing to destroy his own heart? +� +Alexandr Solzhenitsyn +

  +When you think of the long +and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed +in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. +� C. P. Snow +  +

  + + + + + +The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists +in trying to adapt the world to himself. +Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man"  - George Bernard Shaw, +*Maxims for Revolutionists* + + + + + + +

+ +Inspirational:
+
+"You see things that are and ask, "Why?" But I dream +things that never were and ask "Why not?""
+- George Bernard Shaw
+ + +
+"Do not be too squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more +experiments you make the better". Ralph Waldo Emerson. + + + + + + +

+ +"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." +
+-Robert Frost + + + + + + +

"In the depths of +winter I finally +learned there was in +me an invincible summer." - +Albert Camus
+ + +
+"Most people are about as +happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham +Lincoln + + + + + + +

+ +"Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see +bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is +because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses."  +- Dale Carnegie
+ + +
+"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."
+-Guillaume Appollinaire + + + + + + +

+ +MORE: + + + + + + +

Just as the earth itself forms the +indispensable ground for the only kind of life we know, providing the sole +sustenance of our minds and bodies, so does empirical truth constitute the +foundation of higher truths. (If there is such a thing as +higher truth.) It seems to me that Keats was wrong when he asked, +rhetorically, �Do not all charms fly�at the mere touch of cold philosophy?� +The word �philosophy� standing, in his day, for what we now +call �physical science.� But Keats was wrong, I say, because there is +more charm in one �mere� fact, confirmed by test and observation, linked to +other facts through coherent theory into a rational system, than in a whole +brainful of fancy and fantasy. I see more poetry in +a chunk of quartzite than in a make-believe wood nymph, more beauty in the +revelations of a verifiable intellectual construction than in whole misty +empires of obsolete mythology�Any good poet, in our age at least, must begin +with the scientific view of the world; and any scientist worth listening to must +be something of a poet, must possess the ability to communicate to the rest of +us his sense of love and wonder at what his work discovers.
+� Edward Abbey +

I believe that scientific knowledge has +fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn; whatever is left, however +small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with. +That, I think, is the secret of the Universe.
+� Isaac Asimov +

 There are many aspects of the universe that +still can�t be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance implies only +ignorance that may some day be conquered. To +surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature up to this +time, and it remains premature today.
+� Isaac Asimov +

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, +the one that heralds new discoveries, is not �Eureka!� (I found it!) +but �That�s funny��
+� Isaac Asimov
+
+If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be +content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
+� Francis Bacon +

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
+� Francis Bacon +

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, +and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
+� Francis Bacon
+
+What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not +stay for an answer.
+� Francis Bacon  +

Let the mind be enlarged, according to its +capacity, to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to +the narrowness of the mind.
+� Francis Bacon  +

Knowledge is power.
+� Francis Bacon +

 There is no great concurrence between +learning and wisdom.
+� Francis Bacon +

 Read not to contradict and confute; nor to +believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and +consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to +be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others +to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with +diligence and attention.
+� Francis Bacon +

 Atheism leaves a man to sense, to +philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides +to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious +superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of +men.
+� Francis Bacon
+
+Don�t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don�t walk behind me, I may not +lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
+� Albert Camus +

 In the depth of winter I finally learned +that within me there lay an invincible summer.
+� Albert Camus
+
+Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. +The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to +hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
+� Albert Einstein +

The important thing is not to stop +questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be +in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous +structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of +this mystery every day.
+� Albert Einstein +

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and +file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, +since for him a spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization +should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, +deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all +this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds +than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the +cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
+� Albert Einstein +

Peace cannot be achieved through +violence, it can only be attained through +understanding.
+� Albert Einstein +

The scientist finds his reward in what Henri +Poincare calls the joy of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of +application to which any discovery may lead.
+� Albert Einstein +

A human being is part of a whole, called by +us the �Universe,� a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his +thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest � a kind of optical +delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, +restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons +nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our +circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in +its beauty.
+� Albert Einstein +

It was, of course, a lie what you read about +my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not +believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it +clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the +unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can +reveal it.
+� Albert Einstein +

 I believe in Spinoza�s God who reveals +Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself +with fates and actions of human beings.
+� Albert Einstein +

 From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, +of course, and have always been an atheist�It is always misleading to use +anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things +outside the human sphere � childish analogies. We have to admire in humility the +beautiful harmony of the structure of this world � as far as we can grasp it. +And that is all.
+� Albert Einstein +

Everything is determined, the beginning as +well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for +the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all +dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
+� Albert Einstein +

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief +sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. +But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for +other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own +happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose +destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I +remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, +living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same +measure as I have received and am still receiving...
+"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this +critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my +way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have +been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like +mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally +unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have +seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward +success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
+"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always +contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other +human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never +belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with +my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of +distance and a need for solitude..." +

-from "The World as I See It", by Albert Einstein +

My Credo (1932) +

"It is a special blessing to belong among +those who can and may devote their best energies to the contemplation and +exploration of objective and timeless things. How happy and grateful I am for +having been granted this blessing, which bestows upon one a large measure of +independence from one's personal fate and from the attitude of one's +contemporaries. Yet this independence must not inure us to the awareness of the +duties that constantly bind us to the past, present and future of humankind at +large.
+Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, +involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the +wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of +others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected +with our own. I am often troubled by the thought that my life is based to such a +large extent on the work of my fellow human beings, and I am aware of my great +indebtedness to them.
+I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, +but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my +life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather +painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking +myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and +from losing my temper.
+I have never coveted affluence and luxury and even despise them a good deal. My +passion for social justice has often brought me into conflict with people, as +has my aversion to any obligation and dependence I did not regard as absolutely +necessary. I have a high regard for the individual and an insuperable distaste +for violence and fanaticism. All these motives have made me a passionate +pacifist and antimilitarist. I am against any chauvinism, even in the guise of +mere patriotism.
+Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and +pernicious, as does any exaggerated personality cult. I am an adherent of the +ideal of democracy, although I know well the weaknesses of the democratic form +of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual have +always seemed to me the important communal aims of the state.
+Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to +the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps +me from feeling isolated.
+The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the +mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious +endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if +not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be +experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and +sublimely reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am +religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to +grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is."
+-Albert Einstein 
+
+Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human +beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least +partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this +world beckoned like a liberation�The road to this +paradise was not as comforting and alluring as the road to the religious +paradise; but it has proved itself as trustworthy, and I have never regretted +having chosen it.
+� Albert Einstein  +

The further the spiritual evolution of +mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine +religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and +blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
+� Albert Einstein  +

The foundation of morality should not be +made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or +about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment +and action.
+� Albert Einstein  +

One thing I have learned in a long life: +that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike � and +yet it is the most precious thing we have.
+� Albert Einstein  +

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever�This is +a somewhat new kind of religion.
+� Albert Einstein +

"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means +nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction +between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
+-Albert Einstein -- referring to the death of a fellow physicist +

"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether +one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after +I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific +problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
+-Albert Einstein
+
+"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. +He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would +surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. +Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble +war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It +is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of +murder."
+-Albert Einstein +

 Selected Einstein aphorisms +