8 Freeman Dyson Quotes on Philosophy

Freeman Dyson quotes on philosophy

3. The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.

6. The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.

7. The laws of nature are constructed in such a way as to make the universe as interesting as possible.

12. It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

17. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.

32. I have five minutes left to give you a message to take home. The message is simple. 'God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world'. This was said by Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of modern science, almost four hundred years ago. Bacon was the smartest man of his time, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare.

34. To talk about the end of science is just as foolish as to talk about the end of religion. Science and religion are both still close to their beginnings, with no ends in sight. Science and religion are both destined to grow and change in the millennia that lie ahead of us, perhaps solving some old mysteries, certainly discovering new mysteries of which we yet have no inkling.

36. Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect.