“Modern physics… reduces matter to a set of events which proceed outward from a centre. If there is something further in the centre itself, we cannot know about it, and it is irrelevant to physics.”

—  Bertrand Russell

An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
1920s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Modern physics… reduces matter to a set of events which proceed outward from a centre. If there is something further in…" by Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

Bertrand Russell photo

“There is a connected set of events (light-waves) travelling outward from a centre… there are some respects in which all events are alike, and others in which they differ… We must not think of a light-wave as a 'thing', but as a connected group of rhythmical events. The mathematical characteristics of such a group can be inferred by physics, but the intrinsic character of the component events cannot be inferred.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
1920s

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo

“In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis.
pp. 70–71 https://archive.org/stream/ActivationOfEnergy/Activation_of_Energy#page/n65/mode/2up
Activation of Energy (1976)

Jane Roberts photo

“Your experience in the world of physical matter flows outward from the center of your psyche. Then you perceive this experience. exterior events, circumstances and conditions are meant as a kind of living feedback. Altering the state of the psyche automatically alters the physical circumstances. There is no other valid way of changing physical events. It might help if you imagine an inner living dimension within yourself in which you create, in miniature psychic form, all the exterior conditions that you know. Simply put, you do exactly this. Your thoughts, feelings and mental pictures can be called incipient exterior events, for in one way or another, each of these is materialized into physical reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), p. 9-10, Session 613

Antoni Tàpies photo

“It is essential to bear in mind that the world of the mystics, like that of modern physics, cannot always be 'explained' in normal words, but often 'shows' itself the better through visual images.. [from the accumulation of matter and of objects to the radicalism of a gesture, it is a matter of] painting the essential and nothing more”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

Tàpies is citing here Llull
in his 1990 speech 'L'art modern, la mística i l'humor' ('Modern Art, Mysticism and Humour'), Barcelona: Editorial Empúries i Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1993; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), p. 12
insisting on his 'magma works' like 'Montseny-Montnegre' and 'Díptic amb dues formes corbes' (Diptych with Two Curved Shapes), 1988.
1981 - 1990

Benjamin Creme photo

“Part Two…deals with that most extraordinary event, the externalization of the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy onto the physical plane for the first time in 98,000 years in Their role as teachers. This is a climactic event for the Masters Themselves, as well as for humanity: They return to physical-plane activity, only now in group formation, in order to re-enact Their own life expression in preparation for the Way of the Higher Evolution. This is part of the long-term plan of the coming together of the Masters and humanity, and the evolution of Hierarchy Itself as a centre on this planet….”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Great Approach (2001)

Michael Halliday photo

“A physical system is just that: a physical system. What is systematized is matter itself, and the processes in which the system is realized are also material. But a biological system is more complex: it is both biological and physical — it is matter with the added component of life; and a social system is more complex still: it is physical, and biological, with the added component of social order, or value. … A semiotic system is still one step further in complexity: it is physical, and biological, and social —and also semiotic: what is being systematized is meaning. In evolutionary terms, it is a system of the fourth order of complexity”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Michael Halliday (2005, p. 68) as cited in: Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011) "A Management Perspective on Social Ecological Systems". In: Human Ecology Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2011.
1970s and later

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“Matter and all else that is in the physical world have been reduced to a shadowy symbolism.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929), III, p.33

Bertrand Russell photo

“Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
1920s
Context: Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

Aldous Huxley photo

“The self is coming from a state of pure awareness from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in a outward manifesation of the physical world, including fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell

Related topics