
“One of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.”
On the Cantor set, as quoted in A World Without Time : The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (2005) by Palle Yourgrau, p. 44
Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 1 “Culture Plate” (p. 5).
“One of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.”
On the Cantor set, as quoted in A World Without Time : The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (2005) by Palle Yourgrau, p. 44
Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week Interview, 2008-07-17, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-07-17 http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/linus-torvalds,-geek-of-the-week/,
2000s, 2008
Letter (26 April 1945), p. 72
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment.
Life Is A Miracle : An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000)
Context: Reductionism (ultimately, the empirical explanability of everything and a cornerstone of science), has uses that are appropriate, and it also can be used inappropriately. It is appropriately used as a way (one way) of understanding what is empirically known or empirically knowable. When it becomes merely an intellectual "position" confronting what is not empirically known or knowable, then it becomes very quickly absurd, and also grossly desensitizing and false.
“Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.”
Variant: Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.