Insights Discovery Quotes

It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,

A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension. I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science- in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow. In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze. I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the 'growing edge;' the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead. But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning. There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. 'If I have seen further than other men,' said Isaac Newton, 'it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Nin knew how much humans loved money, riches, and material things—though he never really could understand why. The more technologically advanced the human species got, the more isolated they seemed to become, at the same time. It was alarming, how humans could spend entire lifetimes engaged in all kinds of activities, without getting any closer to knowing who they really were, inside.

HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant. HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity. HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long. HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of vision. HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize an partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful. HELPED are those who love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees. HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child. HELPED are those who risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the word in which no one's gift is despised or lost. HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war. HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world. HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth. HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator's magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing. HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous. HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon, and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is to murder in confusion. HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid. HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass. HELPED are those who love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their differences. HELPED are those who KNOW.

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.

What I am trying to say is that insofar as religion and many other beliefs are concerned, my mind no longer possesses the power to imprison me; any punishment which I perceive to be doled out by God, is moreover the result of my own doing.

Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.

By observing natural scientific discoveries through a perception deepened by meditation, we can develop a new awareness of reality. This awareness could become the bedrock of a spirituality that is not based on the dogmas of a given religion, but on insights into a higher and deeper meaning. I am referring to the ability to recognize, to read, and to understand the firsthand revelations.

In following your inclinations and moving toward mastery, you make a great contribution to society, enriching it with discoveries and insights, and making the most of the diversity in nature and among human society.

Intuition is the use of patterns they’ve already learned, whereas insight is the discovery of new patterns.

In some strange way, any new fact or insight that I may have found has not seemed to me as a “discovery” of mine, but rather something that had always been there and that I had chanced to pick up.

The creative person is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in the universe through what he creates. He finds this a valuable integrating process which, like meditation or prayer, has little to do with other people, but which has its own separate validity. His most significant moments are those in which he attains some new insight, or makes some new discovery; and these moments are chiefly, if not invariably, those in which he is alone.

Once you reach deeper and deeper into your reality, you approach closer and closer its surreal essence.

Disruptors don't have to discover something new; they just have to discover a practical use for new discoveries.

everyone wants insight into others, few people are as willing to look so intently at themselves.

Essentially, insight meditation is a practice of investigative personal discovery.

Psychedelics show you what’s in and on your mind, those subconscious thoughts and feelings that are are hidden, covered up, forgotten, out of sight, maybe even completely unexpected, but nevertheless imminently present. Depending upon set and setting, the same drug, at the same dose, can cause vastly different responses in the same person. One day, very little happens; another day, you soar, full of ecstatic and insightful discoveries; the next, you struggle through a terrifying nightmare. The generic nature of psychedelic, a term wide open to interpretation, suits these effects.

A Prayer for Daily Insight Open my eyes, God. Help me to perceive what I have ignored, to uncover what I have forgotten, to find what I have been searching for. Remind me that I don't have to journey far to discover something new, for miracles surround me, blessings and holiness abound. And You are near. Amen.

Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side and light on scepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a ‘dumb question’. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize ‘facts’. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little scepticism. They’re worried about asking ‘dumb’ questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers.

There’s no discovery without a search and there’s no rediscovery without a research. Every discovery man ever made has always been concealed. It takes searchers and researchers to unveil them, that’s what make an insightful leader.

Truly creative people work for work’s own sake, and if they make a public discovery or become famous that is a bonus. What

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.” Many

With his body pressed to hers there is no sense of an ending, but of moments in which a part of his self is given, ceaselessly. For this woman he would be born a thousand times; endure a thousand agonising births. He would be happy to exist as her lover and nothing besides. 

Coincidences change our understanding, change what we notice, change what excites us, and set us on the path to making a discovery. Coincidences can also change our actions. One way they do this is by giving us an idea of what we need to alter to break a pattern we don’t like

The insight presumably occurs when a subconscious connection between ideas fits so well that it is forced to pop out into awareness, like a cork held underwater breaking out into the air after it is released.

The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of "mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indication that one is starting to realize that life lived outside unity consciousness is ultimately painful, distressing, and sorrowful. The life of boundaries is a life of battles—of fear, anxiety, pain, and finally death. It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions, and enchantments that we agree not to question our illusory boundaries, the root cause of the endless wheel of agony. But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail their soothing and concealing purpose. As a consequence, we begin to suffer in one way or another, because our awareness is finally directed toward the conflict-ridden nature of our false boundaries and the fragmented life supported by them.

Sometimes even if you meet people where they are they will still reject you and that's okay. It takes more time for healing and self-discovery for some than it does for others. 

Life is your teacher. How can you learn to understand your truth, if you deny your reality?

There are no shortcuts to moral insight. Nature is not intrinsically anything that can offer comfort or solace in human terms -- if only because our species is such an insignificant latecomer in a world not constructed for us. So much the better. The answers to moral dilemmas are not lying out there, waiting to be discovered. They reside, like the kingdom of God, within us -- the most difficult and inaccessible spot for any discovery or consensus.

The purported insight achieved by the patient is not the product of a process of veridical self-discovery, but rather reflects the patient’s conversion to the therapist’s interpretation.

And so the Dark Angel once more embeds herself in Jeremiah’s’ mind. If not for the gardener he might believe each appearance an apparition for she does not belong amongst the sombre apothecaries and their fledgling apprentices, musing on herbs as if they are already in phials and not aligned for appreciating beauty. No, such a woman - any woman for that matter - did not belong in the Physic Gardens; though with this particular woman, Jeremiah cannot discern quite where she belonged. 

This was the pivotal insight of the Scientific Revolution: that the advancement of knowledge depends on current theories collapsing in the face of new insights and discoveries. In this model of progress, errors do not lead us away from the truth. Instead, they edge us incrementally toward it.

Children discover and verify their theories in quite the same way that scientists do: through experimentation. They manipulate the world and discover regularities of causation from those manipulations. Why do they do it? The discovery of regularities comes with a pleasurable burst of insight, which all of us, but especially children and scientists, continuously long for like bonbons or opium.

The anti-Stratfordians hold that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare’s plays—it was another fellow of the same name, or of a different name. In this they invert the megalomaniacal equation and make themselves not the elect, but the superior of the elect. Barred from composing Shakespeare’s plays by a regrettable temporal accident, they, in the fantasy of most every editor, accept the mantle of primum mobile, consign the (falsely named) creator to oblivion, and turn to the adulation of the crowd for their deed of discovery and insight—so much more thoughtful and intellectual than the necessarily sloppy work of the writer.

In following your inclinations and moving toward mastery, you make a great contribution to society, enriching it with discoveries and insights, and making the most of the diversity in nature and among human society.

Decades ago, when cars became a thing, people started imagining about flying cars. They never imagined about internet and smartphones. We extrapolate what we already know. If we know about cars, we imagine about flying cars.

Understanding “no-self” does not come from destroying something we call “self” or “ego.” The great awakening or discovery of the Buddha revealed that there was no self, no permanent I, to begin with. So if there is nothing we have to get rid of, then understanding selflessness very simply comes from careful awareness of what actually is happening moment to moment.

To the freethinker, change is anticipated, and something to be embraced. To change our mind is our greatest strength, as it has led to the most remarkable discoveries in human insight and has resulted in the drive to grow as a species in all areas of our lives.

Martin Chalfie is a perfect example of the experience most people have of “connecting the dots” and solving a problem by being exposed to more ideas. Like Chalfie, we get a new piece of information that combines with other information we already have, and, presto, we make a discovery.

It is my opinion that education is a key component to peace and progress. Despite their arrogant claims to have all the answers, world religions cannot account for recent insights and discoveries about the natural world and human history. In this, the most tantalizing argument against religious faith comes forth in the way of science and reason. An ever-growing scientific consensus has resulted in the ever-shrinking populous of religious relevance.

Just as the mindfulness meditator is amazed to discover how mindless he is in daily life, so the first insights of the meditator who begins to question the self are normally not egolessness but the discovery of total egomania. Constantly one thinks, feels, and acts as though one had a self to protect and preserve. The slightest encroachment on the self's territory (a splinter in the finger, a noisy neighbor) arouses fear and anger. The slightest hope of self-enhancement (gain, praise, fame, pleasure) arouses greed and grasping. Any hint that a situation is irrelevant to the self (waiting for a bus, meditating) arouses boredom. Such impulses are instinctual, automatic, pervasive, and powerful. They are completely taken for granted in daily life.

in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice.

The personality of a man always poses the biggest obstacle to his own education, thought Charlie. He’s either too proud, too stubborn, or too timid to submit to the process of discovery. Many of life’s lessons come through trial or tribulation, and the cost of those lessons shouldn’t be taken lightly. But at least half of what a man hasn’t learned in his lifetime he could have learned with ease. This is one of the insights that comes with age—when one understands the nature of discovery but no longer has the time or energy to submit to its splendors. Thus, we are doomed to end our days in an ignorance largely of our own making.

Life is a great big beautiful three-ring circus. There are those on the floor making their lives among the heads of lions and hoops of fire, and those in the stands, complacent and wowed, their mouths stuffed with popcorn. I know less now than ever about life, but I do know its size. Life is enormous. Much grander than what we’ve taken for ourselves, so far. When the show is over and the tent is packed, the elephants, lions and dancing poodles are caged and mounted on trucks to caravan to the next town. The clown’s makeup has worn, and his bright, red smile has been washed down a sink. All that is left is another performance, another tent and set of lights. We rest in the knowledge: the show must go on. Somewhere, behind our stage curtain, a still, small voice asks why we haven’t yet taken up juggling. My seminars were like this. Only, instead of flipping shiny, black bowling balls or roaring chainsaws through the air, I juggled concepts. The world is intrinsically tied together. All things march through time at different intervals but move ahead in one fashion or another. Though we may never understand it, we are all part of something much larger than ourselves—something anchoring us to the spot we have mentally chosen. We sniff out the rules, through spiritual quests and the sciences. And with every new discovery, we grow more confused. Our inability to connect what seems illogical to unite and to defy logic in our understanding keeps us from enlightenment. The artists and insane tiptoe around such insights, but lack the compassion to hand-feed these concepts to a blind world. The interconnectedness of all things is not simply a pet phrase. It is a big “T” truth that the wise spend their lives attempting to grasp.

We are actually programmed to get satisfaction and pleasure from discovery and creativity, he says, because its results lead to our survival as a species. New

The most exciting roads I’ve ever traversed, the best meals I’ve ever eaten and the most wonderful accommodations I’ve ever stayed in were discovered during the ride, not beforehand.

Halfway through the second term of Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal braintrusters began to worry about mounting popular concern over the national debt. In those days the size of the national debt was on everyone’s mind. Indeed, Franklin Roosevelt had talked himself into office, in 1932, in part by promising to hack away at a debt which, even under the frugal Mr. Hoover, the people tended to think of as grown to menacing size. Mr. Roosevelt’s wisemen worried deeply about the mounting tension ... And then, suddenly, the academic community came to the rescue. Economists across the length and breadth of the land were electrified by a theory of debt introduced in England by John Maynard Keynes. The politicians wrung their hands in gratitude. Depicting the intoxicating political consequences of Lord Keynes’s discovery, the wry cartoonist of the Washington Times Herald drew a memorable picture. In the center, sitting on a throne in front of a Maypole, was a jubilant FDR, cigarette tilted almost vertically, a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear. Dancing about him in a circle, hands clasped together, their faces glowing with ecstasy, the braintrusters, vested in academic robes, sang the magical incantation, the great discovery of Lord Keynes: “We owe it to ourselves.” With five talismanic words, the planners had disposed of the problem of deficit spending. Anyone thenceforward who worried about an increase in the national debt was just plain ignorant of the central insight of modern economics: What do we care how much we - the government - owe so long as we owe it to ourselves? On with the spending. Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect ...

Mathematics is much more than a language for dealing with the physical world. It is a source of models and abstractions which will enable us to obtain amazing new insights into the way in which nature operates.

To appeal to common sense when insight and science fail, and no sooner—this is one of the subtle discoveries of modern times, by means of which the most superficial ranter can safely enter the lists with the most thorough thinker and hold his own.

The creativity myth implies that few people can be creative, that any successful creator will experience dramatic flashes of insight, and that creating is more like magic than work. A rare few have what it takes, and for them it comes easy. Anybody else’s creative efforts are doomed.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that the common idea of a creative individual coming up with great insights, discoveries, works, or inventions in isolation is wrong. Creativity results from a complex interaction between a person and their environment or culture, and also depends on timing.

In 1997, the NCI director, Richard Klausner, responding to reports that cancer mortality had remained disappointingly static through the nineties, argued that the medical realities of one decade had little bearing on the realities of the next. “There are far more good historians than there are good prophets,” Klausner wrote. “It is extraordinarily difficult to predict scientific discovery, which is often propelled by seminal insights coming from unexpected directions. The classic example—Fleming’s discovery of penicillin on moldy bread and the monumental impact of that accidental finding—could not easily have been predicted, nor could the sudden demise of iron-lung technology when evolving techniques in virology allowed the growth of poliovirus and the preparation of vaccine. Any extrapolation of history into the future presupposes an environment of static discovery—an oxymoron.

The central dogma of computational trinitarianism holds that Logic, Languages, and Categories are but three manifestations of one divine notion of computation. There is no preferred route to enlightenment: each aspect provides insights that comprise the experience of computation in our lives. Computational trinitarianism entails that any concept arising in one aspect should have meaning from the perspective of the other two. If you arrive at an insight that has importance for logic, languages, and categories, then you may feel sure that you have elucidated an essential concept of computation—you have made an enduring scientific discovery.

I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature. It also requires a willingness to accept objectives which are limited by physical, logical, and technological constraints, and to accept a compromise when conflicting objectives cannot be met. No committee will ever do this until it is too late.

Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder and gained very little skepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers, they don't pose follow-up questions, the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade. And it's not just puberty. I'd guess that it's partly peer pressure not to excel - except in sports, partly that the society teaches short-term gratification, partly the impression that science or mathematics won't buy you a sports car, partly that so little is expected of students, and partly that there are few rewards or role-models for intelligent discussion of science and technology - or even for learning for it's own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as nerds or geeks or grinds. But there's something else. I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. 'Why is the Moon round?', the children ask. 'Why is grass green?', 'What is a dream?', 'How deep can you dig a hole?', 'When is the world's birthday?', 'Why do we have toes?'. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation, or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. 'What did you expect the Moon to be? Square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science.

This “Hawking temperature” of a black hole and its “Hawking radiation” (as they came to be called) were truly radical—perhaps the most radical theoretical physics discovery in the second half of the twentieth century. They opened our eyes to profound connections between general relativity (black holes), thermodynamics (the physics of heat) and quantum physics (the creation of particles where before there were none). For example, they led Stephen to prove that a black hole has entropy, which means that somewhere inside or around the black hole there is enormous randomness. He deduced that the amount of entropy (the logarithm of the hole’s amount of randomness) is proportional to the hole’s surface area. His formula for the entropy is engraved on Stephen’s memorial stone at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, where he worked. For the past forty-five years, Stephen and hundreds of other physicists have struggled to understand the precise nature of a black hole’s randomness. It is a question that keeps on generating new insights about the marriage of quantum theory with general relativity—that is, about the ill-understood laws of quantum gravity.

Religion even boasts a special branch of itself, devoted to the study of the end. It calls itself “eschatology,” and broods incessantly on the passing away of all earthly things. This death cult refuses to abate, even though we have every reason to think that “earthly things” are all that we have, or are ever going to have. Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice.

Scientific discovery always arises out of meditation, not out of mind. And whenever something comes from the mind, it is not science but only technology. Technology is a poor thing; it is not the insight but the implementation of the insight. ... Insights come from the beyond. Mind is just the surface of your being; insights come from the center of your being. Meditation takes you to the center.

Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice.

Phœbe went accordingly, but perplexed herself, meanwhile, with queries as to the purport of the scene she had just witnessed, and also whether judges, clergymen, and other characters of that eminent stamp and respectability, could really, in any single instance, be otherwise than just and upright men. A doubt of this nature has a most disturbing influence, and, if shown to be a fact, comes with fearful and startling effect on the minds of the trim, orderly, and limit-loving class, in which we maybe find our little country-girl. Dispositions more boldly speculative may derive a stern enjoyment from the discovery, since there must be evil in the world, that a high man is as likely to grasp his share of it as a low one. A wider scope of the view, and a deeper insight, may see rank, dignity, and station, all proved illusory, so far as regards their claim to human reverence, and yet not feel as if the universe were thereby tumbled head-long into chaos.

Most decisions, and nearly all human interaction, can be incorporated into a contingencies model. For example, a President may start a war, a man may sell his business, or divorce his wife. Such an action will produce a reaction; the number of reactions is infinite but the number of probable reactions is manageably small. Before making a decision, an individual can predict various reactions, and he can assess his original, or primary-mode, decision more effectively. But there is also a category which cannot be analyzed by contingencies. This category involves events and situations which are absolutely unpredictable, not merely disasters of all sorts, but those also including rare moments of discovery and insight, such as those which produced the laser, or penicillin. Because these moments are unpredictable, they cannot be planned for in any logical manner. The mathematics are wholly unsatisfactory. We may only take comfort in the fact that such situations, for ill or for good, are exceedingly rare.

Hubble was lucky in a way. The Hubble Space Telescope could easily have been given another name had certain events turned out differently: if someone had not prematurely died (Keeler), if someone else had not taken a promotion (Curtis), or if another (Shapley) was not mulishly wedded to a flawed vision of the cosmos. The discovery of the modern universe is a story filled with trials, errors, serendipitous breaks, battles of wills, missed opportunities, herculean measurements, and brilliant insights. In other words, it is science writ large.

Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists—although heavy on the wonder side and light on skepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a “dumb question.” But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize “facts.” By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little skepticism. They’re worried about asking “dumb” questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade, and it’s not just puberty. I’d guess that it’s partly peer pressure not to excel (except in sports); partly that the society teaches short-term gratification; partly the impression that science or mathematics won’t buy you a sports car; partly that so little is expected of students; and partly that there are few rewards or role models for intelligent discussion of science and technology—or even for learning for its own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as “nerds” or “geeks” or “grinds.

Writing a memoir is a holistic method of learning and healing by placing responsibility for personal transformation on the spiritual authority of the self. Writing a person’s life story is useful to gain a comprehensive understanding regarding a person’s maturation, distinctive stages of personal development, and the influences provided by their family and society. The writing processes also serves as a catharsis for painful personal events that a person seeks to integrate into their transmuting being. Writing our personal story, we discover new dimensions of our being.

Data that did not fit the commonly accepted assumptions of a discipline would either be discounted or explained away for as long as possible. The more contradictions accumulated, the more convoluted the rationalizations became. 'In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty,' Kuhn wrote. But then, finally, someone came along who was willing to call a red spade a red spade. Crisis led to insight, and the old framework gave way to a new one. This is how great scientific discoveries or, to use the term Kuhn made so popular, 'paradigm shifts' took place.

When the same or closely similar circumstances occur again, sometimes in only a few years, they are hailed by a new, often youthful, and always supremely self-confident generation as a brilliantly innovative discovery in the financial and larger economic world. There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present. (A Short History of Financial Euphoria, 1990)

It was the discovery of the quantum universe that changed everything, and that universe was so small and so dynamic that it could not be observed directly. Trying to explain their insights, scientists looked at the language of mysticism. At the subatomic level, the parallels between quantum reality and mysticism were striking. For example, the behavior of light: in some contexts it acted like a wave, in others like a particle. Could it be both? Physicists had no concept for grasping this, so they dispensed with Western logic and embraced paradox. (This is important, too, for the notion of vampires being both living and dead.)

Some of us find meaning in creation—of building things that have never existed before, be they made of words or pigment or wood. Some of us find meaning in exploration and discovery—of finding new places, or new ways of looking at known places; of looking so close, or so far, that we see things that have not been seen before. Some of us find meaning in healing, in touch and insight that results in betterment, which allows the person on the receiving end to become more functional. Others in helping in other ways, or in elucidating—in teaching, for instance. Others in communication or interpretation, in building teams, or in leading them.

Truth and facts are not the same, because facts alone don't make the truth. Truth requires insight, truth requires wisdom. Facts can contribute to that insight and wisdom, but access to facts doesn't necessarily entail access to wisdom. The best example I can think of is that of love. Love is truth, whereas lust is fact. Lust may be a part of love, but it's not the whole of love. In fact, in many cases lust is not even part of the picture. The same goes for truth and facts. Fact is a state of matter, truth is a state of mind. Matter makes the mind - sure - but to fathom the matter behind mind in its fullest intricacies will take us millennia more.

During our glorious year of 1974–5, while I was dithering over gravitational waves, and Stephen was leading our merged group in black hole research, Stephen himself had an insight even more radical than his discovery of Hawking radiation. He gave a compelling, almost airtight proof that, when a black hole forms and then subsequently evaporates away completely by emitting radiation, the information that went into the black hole cannot come back out. Information is inevitably lost. This is radical because the laws of quantum physics insist unequivocally that information can never get totally lost. So, if Stephen was right, black holes violate a most fundamental quantum mechanical law. How could this be? The black hole’s evaporation is governed by the combined laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity—the ill-understood laws of quantum gravity; and so, Stephen reasoned, the fiery marriage of relativity and quantum physics must lead to information destruction. The great majority of theoretical physicists find this conclusion abhorrent. They are highly sceptical. And so, for forty-four years they have struggled with this so-called information-loss paradox. It is a struggle well worth the effort and anguish that have gone into it, since this paradox is a powerful key for understanding the quantum gravity laws. Stephen himself, in 2003, found a way that information might escape during the hole’s evaporation, but that did not quell theorists’ struggles. Stephen did not prove that the information escapes, so the struggle continues. In my eulogy for Stephen, at the interment of his ashes at Westminster Abbey, I memorialised that struggle with these words: “Newton gave us answers. Hawking gave us questions. And Hawking’s questions themselves keep on giving, generating breakthroughs decades later. When ultimately we master the quantum gravity laws, and comprehend fully the birth of our universe, it may largely be by standing on the shoulders of Hawking.

I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature. It also requires a willingness to accept objectives which are limited by physical, logical, and technological constraints, and to accept a compromise when conflicting objectives cannot be met. No committee will ever do this until it is too late.

On September 14, 2015, the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors (built by a 1,000-person project that Rai and I and Ronald Drever co-founded, and Barry Barish organised, assembled and led) registered their first gravitational waves. By comparing the wave patterns with predictions from computer simulations, our team concluded that the waves were produced when two heavy black holes, 1.3 billion light years from Earth, collided. This was the beginning of gravitational-wave astronomy. Our team had achieved, for gravitational waves, what Galileo achieved for electromagnetic waves. I am confident that, over the coming several decades, the next generation of gravitational-wave astronomers will use these waves not only to test Stephen’s laws of black hole physics, but also to detect and monitor gravitational waves from the singular birth of our universe, and thereby test Stephen’s and others’ ideas about how our universe came to be. During our glorious year of 1974–5, while I was dithering over gravitational waves, and Stephen was leading our merged group in black hole research, Stephen himself had an insight even more radical than his discovery of Hawking radiation. He gave a compelling, almost airtight proof that, when a black hole forms and “and then subsequently evaporates away completely by emitting radiation, the information that went into the black hole cannot come back out. Information is inevitably lost.

God the protector fits a world of bare survival, full of physical threats and danger. God the almighty fits a world of power struggles and ambition, where fierce competition rules. A God of peace fits a world of inner solitude where reflection and contemplation are possible. God the redeemer fits a world where personal growth is encouraged and insights prove fruitful. God the creator fits a world that is constantly renewing itself, where innovation and discovery are valued. A God of miracles fits a world that contains prophets and seers, where spiritual vision is nurtured. A God of pure being—“I Am”—fits a world that transcends all boundaries, a world of infinite possibilities. The wonder is that the human nervous system can operate on so many planes.

Why is it difficult for scientists to write in simple language? One reason is because we are part of a community where every statement and idea should be credited to fellow scientists. Professional science writers have the luxury of borrowing ideas from anyone, combining them in unexpected ways, simplifying and illuminating them with attractive metaphors, and packaging them in a mesmerizing narrative. They can do this without hesitation because the audience is aware that the author is a smart storyteller and not the maker of the discoveries. However, when scientists follow such a path, it is hard to distinguish, both for them and the audience, whether the beautiful insights and earthshaking ideas were sparked from their own brains or from other hard-working colleagues.

There is a myth about how something new comes to be. Geniuses have dramatic moments of insight where great things and thoughts are born whole. Poems are written in dreams. Symphonies are composed complete. Science is accomplished with eureka shrieks. Businesses are built by magic touch. Something is not, then is. We do not see the road from nothing to new, and maybe we do not want to. Artistry must be misty magic, not sweat and grind. It dulls the luster to think that every elegant equation, beautiful painting, and brilliant machine is born of effort and error, the progeny of false starts and failures, and that each maker is as flawed, small, and mortal as the rest of us. It is seductive to conclude that great innovation is delivered to us by miracle via genius. And so the myth.

What if those teams had created a better work environment? What if they had built a climate of openness where people felt able to speak up? What if that environment made it easier to be open and honest about error? To err is human. Mistakes happen—the only real question is whether we catch, admit, and correct them. Maybe the good teams, I suddenly thought, don’t make more mistakes, maybe they report more. They swim upstream against the widely held view of error as indicative of incompetence, which leads people everywhere to suppress acknowledging (or to deny responsibility for) mistakes. This discourages the systematic analysis of mistakes that allows us to learn from them. This insight eventually led me to the discovery of psychological safety, and why it matters in today’s world.

So we begin with a very simple object of attention, like the breath, and train ourselves to return to it even as we get distracted over and over again. This first insight into the habit of distraction leads us to understand the value and importance of steadying our attention, because the worlds we create in ourselves and around us all have their origins in our own minds. How many different mind-worlds do we inhabit in our thoughts, even between one breath and the next? And how many actions do we take because of these unnoticed thoughts? By first taking a particular object of concentration and then training the mind to stay focused on it, we can develop calmness and tranquillity. The object may be the breath, a sound or mantra, a visual image, or certain reflections, all of which serve to concentrate the mind. At first, this requires the effort of continually returning each time the mind wanders off. With practice, though, the mind becomes trained, and then rests quite easily in the chosen object. In addition to the feelings of restfulness and peace, the state of concentration also becomes the basis for deepening insight and wisdom. We find ourselves opening to the world’s suffering as well as to its great beauty. Through the power of increased awareness, simple experience often becomes magically alive: the silhouette of a branch against the night sky or trees swaying in the invisible wind. The way that we sense the world becomes purified, our perception of the world transformed. Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.

When we consider the major role intimidation plays in this ideology, which was still at the peak of its popularity at the turn of the century, it is not surprising that Sigmund Freud had to conceal his surprising discovery of adults' sexual abuse of their children, a discovery he was led to by the testimony of his patients. He disguised his insight with the aid of a theory that nullified this inadmissible knowledge. Children of his day were not allowed, under the severest of threats, to be aware of what adults were doing to them. and if Freud had persisted in his seduction theory, he not only would have had his introjected parents to fear but would no doubt have been discredited, and probably ostracized, by middle-class society. In order to protect himself, he had to devise a theory that would preserve appearances by attributing all “evil”, guilt and wrongdoing to the child's fantasies. in which the parents served only as the objects of projection. We can understand why this theory omitted the fact that it is the parents who not only project their sexual and aggressive fantasies onto the child but also are able to act out these fantasies because they wield the power. It is probably thanks to this omission that many professionals in the psychiatric field, themselves the products of "poisonous pedagogy" have been able to accept the Freudian theory of drives, because it did not force them to question their idealized image of their parents. With the aid of Freud's drive and structural theories, they have been able to continue obeying the commandment they internalized in early childhood: "Thou shalt not be aware of what your parents are doing to you.

How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity.

Another thing you will notice about the puppeteer and neurosurgeon examples in the literature on free will is that the intervention is always—always—secret. Why should this be? Because it is only when we are unwittingly being caused to act or choose by some other, secret agent that the intuitions flood in to the effect that our will is not free. The reason for this is not far to seek, and harks back to the insight that inaugurated game theory: when an agent knows about the attempted manipulation by another agent, it thereupon seeks countermeasures, and at the very least adjusts its behavior to better cope with this discovery. The competitive interactions between the two agents involve multiple levels of feedback, and hence diminishing control by the would-be manipulator. And if the intervention is not only secretive, but requested by the"puppet,” the tables are turned completely.

Of course, there are people who deny that such obvious differences are real – Marxists, anarchists, radical feminists, and other denizens of the intellectual slums, who mistake an inability to make the simplest conceptual distinctions for deep insight. To these, it seems, we can add the ranks of secularist “thinkers.” When “New Atheists” and their ilk assure us in all seriousness that believing in God is just like believing in the Easter bunny, or that teaching religion is tantamount to child abuse, they remind me of the freshman philosophy student who once proudly declared to me his “discovery” that taking a girl out on a date was really no different from hiring a call girl, since what it’s “all about” is giving something in exchange for sex. In both cases, the analysis put forward is evidence not of profound philosophical understanding, but merely of being a shallow and sophomoric jackass.

Enzymes have made and unmade every single biomolecule inside every living cell that lives or has ever lived. Enzymes are as close as anything to the vital factors of life. So the discovery that some, and possibly all, enzymes work by promoting the dematerialization of particles from one point in space and their instantaneous materialization in another provides us with a novel insight into the mystery of life. And while there remain many unresolved issues related to enzymes that need to be better understood, such as the role of protein motions, there is no doubt that quantum tunneling plays a role in the way they work. Even so, we should address a criticism made by many scientists who accept the findings of Klinman, Scrutton and others, but nevertheless claim that quantum effects have as relevant a role in biology as they have in the workings of a steam train: they are always there but are largely irrelevant to understanding how either system works. Their argument is often positioned within a debate about whether or not enzymes evolved to take advantage of quantum phenomena such as tunneling. The

It is fatally easy, under the conditions of the modern world, for a writer of genius to conceive of himself as a Messiah. Other writers, indeed, may have had profound insights before him; but we readily believe that everything is relative to its period of society, and that these insights have now lost their validity; a new generation is a new world, so there is always a chance, if not of delivering a wholly new gospel, of delivering one as good as new. Or the messiahship may take the form of revealing for the first time the gospel of some dead sage, which no one has understood before; which owing to the backward and confused state of men's minds has lain unknown to this very moment; or it may even go back to the lost Atlantis and the ineffable wisdom of primitive peoples. A writer who is fired with such a conviction is likely to have some devoted disciples; but for posterity he is liable to become, what he will be for the majority of his contemporaries, merely one among many entertainers. And the pity is that the man may have had something to say of the greatest importance: but to announce, as your own discovery, some truth long known to mankind, is to secure immediate attention at the price of ultimate neglect.

In the mid-twentieth century, the subfield of cosmology—not to be confused with cosmetology—didn’t have much data. And where data are sparse, competing ideas abound that are clever and wishful. The existence of the CMB was predicted by the Russian-born American physicist George Gamow and colleagues during the 1940s. The foundation of these ideas came from the 1927 work of the Belgian physicist and priest Georges Lemaître, who is generally recognized as the “father” of big bang cosmology. But it was American physicists Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman who, in 1948, first estimated what the temperature of the cosmic background ought to be. They based their calculations on three pillars: 1) Einstein’s 1916 general theory of relativity; 2) Edwin Hubble’s 1929 discovery that the universe is expanding; and 3) atomic physics developed in laboratories before and during the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bombs of World War II. Herman and Alpher calculated and proposed a temperature of 5 degrees Kelvin for the universe. Well, that’s just plain wrong. The precisely measured temperature of these microwaves is 2.725 degrees, sometimes written as simply 2.7 degrees, and if you’re numerically lazy, nobody will fault you for rounding the temperature of the universe to 3 degrees. Let’s pause for a moment. Herman and Alpher used atomic physics freshly gleaned in a lab, and applied it to hypothesized conditions in the early universe. From this, they extrapolated billions of years forward, calculating what temperature the universe should be today. That their prediction even remotely approximated the right answer is a stunning triumph of human insight.

But states have difficulty evaluating cybersecurity threats. If a state does detect an intrusion in one of its vital networks and if that intrusion looks to be from another state, what should the state suffering the intrusion conclude? On the one hand, it might be a defensive-minded intrusion, only checking out the intruded-upon state’s capabilities and providing reassuring intelligence to the intruding state. This might seem unsettling but not necessarily threatening, presuming the state suffering the intrusion was not developing capabilities for attack or seeking conflict. On the other hand, the intrusion might be more nefarious. It could be a sign of some coming harm, such as a cyber attack or an expanding espionage operation. The state suffering the intrusion will have to decide which of these two possibilities is correct, interpreting limited and almost certainly insufficient amounts of data to divine the intentions of another state. Thus Chapter Four’s argument is vitally important: intrusions into a state’s strategically important networks pose serious risks and are therefore inherently threatening. Intrusions launched by one state into the networks of another can cause a great deal of harm at inopportune times, even if the intrusion at the moment of discovery appears to be reasonably benign. The intrusion can also perform reconnaissance that enables a powerful and well-targeted cyber attack. Even operations launched with fully defensive intent can serve as beachheads for future attack operations, so long as a command and control mechanism is set up. Depending on its target, the intrusion can collect information that provides great insight into the communications and strategies of policy-makers. Network intrusions can also pose serious counterintelligence risks, revealing what secrets a state has learned about other states and provoking a damaging sense of paranoia. Given these very real threats, states are likely to view any serious intrusion with some degree of fear. They therefore have significant incentive to respond strongly, further animating the cybersecurity dilemma.

Determine Keywords Use Compete PRO to find out which keywords drive traffic in an industry category; then create a search with them in Traackr to find the influencers. Validate Use the automated tools as a stepping-stone in the influencer discovery process, read their blogs, and validate the data to build relationships with influencers. Show Commitment Influencer identification is not a one-time thing. You need to do it regularly. It is a marriage, not a date. Welcome Surprises Don’t discount the “little” guy. Some of their one-to-one interactions are stronger than those of broadcasters. It takes only a pebble to start an avalanche. Combine Tools Use Google to find the most relevant keywords, Traackr to gain insights, and Klout to validate Twitter. Value Relevance Over Popularity Choose relevance over popularity. The most popular influencers on social media are often the least helpful in a social media campaign. Study Understand the influencer’s core audience. Combine Human and Machine Tools and technology are a good place to start, but we always need the human element.

[T]here is another explanation for why these scriptures are so different. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (texts that date to the first and second centuries), scholars learned that it was a common practice for religious leaders to alter accepted religious texts. As each great religious leader came along, an edited version of existing texts (including Old Testament texts) might be produced emphasizing the “correct” interpretation of that text according to the insights of the current religious leader. The new texts were not simply a commentary on the verses; rather, verses could be added, eliminated, or otherwise altered in order to convey the desired meaning. In other words, a prophetic leader would take Solomon’s sword to the accepted text and change things he did not agree with or expound on other teachings. This was a traditionally accepted way of sharing religious insights as well as a means of showing reverence to the prophetic, religious leaders of their day. It was a common practice among the ancient Hebrews. For example, among the nearly 900 texts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are 15 different copies of Genesis, 21 different copies of Isaiah and 36 copies of Psalms. Among the multiple copies of the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, some copies vary in length by as much as 15% because of these changes and alterations. And so, the religious texts during and after the time of Jesus were altered, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally. This explanation helps us understand the errors and inconsistencies in the texts, but it further undermines the argument that the Bible is inerrant.

God says nothing. Why not? Francis Anderson is again very insightful. It is one of the many excellences of the book that Job is brought to contentment without ever knowing all the facts of his case. . . . [T]he test would work only if Job did not know what it was for. God thrusts Job into an experience of dereliction to make it possible for Job to enter into a life of naked faith, to learn to love God for himself alone. God does not seem to give this privilege to many people, for they pay a terrible price of suffering for their discoveries. But part of the discovery is to see the suffering itself as one of God’s most precious gifts. To withhold the full story from Job, even after the test was over, keeps him walking by faith, not by sight. He does not say in the end, “Now I see it all.” He never sees it all. He sees God (Job 42:5). Perhaps it is better if God never tells any of us the whole of our life-story.373

Jung sums up his discovery: During those years, between 1918—1920, I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the Self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the Self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later, everything points toward the center. This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the Self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone else knows more, but not I.67

A superbly written, insightful, and beautifully illustrated history of evolution is David Young's The Discovery of Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992

A new voyage of discovery - leading you, toward your very own brand of hidden treasure.

The presence and concern of other people were no help in that respect. Heidegger’s appeal to authenticity and hence to self-discovery is thus based on a pervasive asociality of Dasein. It is only as something fully uncoupled, unique, and thus isolated that we attain insight into our true possibilities.

Moreover, as we saw in Problems with string theory,‡ while each string theory is internally consistent, Smolin presents a strong case against external consistency with evidence, concluding that “all the versions we can study in any detail disagree with observation”. He also maintains that it is externally inconsistent with the scientific tenet of relativity theory: “Einstein’s discovery that the geometry of space and time is dynamical has not been incorporated into string theory.” Without more positive results from these tests of reasonableness for a scientific (as distinct from a mathematical) conjecture, it is difficult to see how the speculated existence of other dimensions is any more tenable than the belief of many Buddhist schools that there are 31 distinct realms of existence. Furthermore, the so far untestable idea that the matter of the universe reduces not to fundamental particles but to strings of energy seems no more or less reasonable than the Upanishadic insight that prana (vital energy) is the essential substrate of all forms of energy and, in many interpretations, of all matter.

The physics of vibration tends to emerge as perceptions of harmonics. Insights into the field optics have revealed that human eyes perceive only a window of light called the visible spectrum, we know that a broader range of light surrounds us at all times on this globe, sailing through the cosmos as we do so.

Please allow me to wax philosophical. The purpose of eyesight, as well as insight for that matter, is for you and I to be in awe of not just creation itself but of the very One who created it. I will confidently propose that this is the purpose behind creation. Consider this: Evolution cannot explain purpose. It can only explain function. Science can explain how and why you and I function. It might even suggest your function within society. However, science alone will never give you the answer to your ultimate purpose for being on this Earth. “Let’s suppose you go to an art museum. While pursuing the halls of art, your eyes are directed to a certain painting. You become fixated on that painting. It is beautiful. The painting is so mesmerizing and beautiful that you are taken with the image it conveys. You begin to speculate on the story behind the painting. You become emotional and even shed a tear as you stare at it in wonder. For a brief moment in time you become immersed in the essence of this work of art. What is happening here? The one who designed and created the painting did so in order to perhaps bring about an emotional response from the viewer. You didn’t look at the painting and wonder about the chemical makeup of paint or the composition of the canvas mat or what type of device was used to apply those chemical compounds to the mat. You didn’t measure the dimensions of the frame. No. The painter gave that painting a purpose. While the painting itself is remarkable and beautiful, the ultimate purpose of it is to direct you to the one who created it. We give honor to Rembrandt, Monet, Goya, Van Gogh, and Picasso. Why does evolution deny that we give honor to the One who designed, created, and gave beauty to you and me, or to any other created thing? For sure, some evolutionists will try to say that the method the grand Creator used in His creation was evolution but will continue to ignore any mention of His creative hand and minimize other accounts such as the evidence for the origin of life in Scripture. They suppress the truth as they give high honor to their evolutionary theories that they guard with defiance. “The appearance of design isn’t just a common sense factor; it comes from a scientific explanation to which I have spoken here tonight. “Each one of you has the ability to hear, read, study, and think on everything that goes into your mind. While we do well to consider objective theory, we still must then decide for ourselves what it is we are going to believe. We are not just lab rats responding to stimuli. We have the ability to reason, love, express emotions, think deeply on matters, and create things—not just as an evolutionary function but from our innate giftedness and developed talents. “Give much consideration to what is true. Consider what is splendid and beautiful and magnificent. Think on things that are right or lovely or worthy of your admiration. Reflect on those things, not just as some facts of science but on the effect these things have on your very heart and soul. There is a word for those thoughts and feelings that penetrate deep within the depths of your soul. The word is visceral. No other creature on this privileged terrestrial ball has this ability. Visceral feelings are not merely a product of our DNA or the chemical and electrical impulses within our brain. Evolution offers no explanation for these deeply rooted expressions of artistic and creative thoughts and ideas. These things come from our Creator. May we not merely skim the surface of wisdom and knowledge without ever going deep. These things are meant to propel you to a deeper awareness of the world around you. They are even meant to propel us to the eternal realm.

Ai recombines such data bits into a type of Artificial Intelligence known as Recombinatorial Logic, similar to basic sentences. At a higher level, Ai generates new, novel insights called generative clauses that come together to form a sort of Ai language.

This story leads us to epiphanies—when we suddenly understand essential truths about life—which were the eighth wonder of life. Around the world, people were awestruck by philosophical insights, scientific discoveries, metaphysical ideas, personal realizations, mathematical equations, and sudden disclosures (such as a wife leaving her husband for his best friend) that transform life in an instant.

My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate. Its revelations and insights add immeasurably to the pleasure of being alive. My faith respects the powerful ability of the collective human intelligence, which initially groped for understanding through myth but now gives us the capacity to comprehend and, optimistically, given time and given cooperation between brains, will do so without limit. The scientific method is a distillation of common sense in alliance with honesty, and its discoveries illuminate the world. Unlike myth-making, which is entertainment in alliance with the desperation of sought but thwarted understanding, that illumination is the sound and firm foundation for the joy of true comprehension.

One of my great pleasures from the study of investing, finance, and economics is the discovery of insights about people and society. The physical sciences have rules such as the law of gravitation that generally hold true in the world as we know it. But human beings and the way they interact aren’t covered by broad, unchanging theories and may never be. Instead I’ve come across more limited concepts that tie things together and serve as shortcuts to understanding.

She had devoted time to improving her reading and was now more than proficient. The shelf she'd first cleared with Bianca overflowed with tales of King Arthur and his knights, Ovid's poetry, plays by Sophocles, Aristotle and Aeschylus, Apuleius, names she loved repeating in her mind because the mere sound of them conjured the drama, pageantry, passion, transformations and suffering of their heroes and heroines. One of her favorite writers was Geoffrey Chaucer-- his poems of pilgrims exchanging stories as they traveled to a shrine in Canterbury were both heart aching and often sidesplittingly funny. Admittedly, one of the reasons she loved Chaucer was because she could read him for herself. It was the same reason she picked up Shakespeare over and over, and the works of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. They all wrote in English. Regarded as quite the eccentric, the duchess was a woman of learning who, like Rosamund, was self-taught. Her autobiography, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life, a gift from Mr. Henderson, gave Rosamund a model to emulate. Here was a woman who dared to consider not only philosophy, science, astronomy and romance, but to write about her reflections and discoveries in insightful ways. Defying her critics, she determined that women were men's intellectual equal, possessed of as quick a wit and as many subtleties if only given the means to express themselves-- in other words, access to education.