Variant: The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
“It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match.”
Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas (21 October 1988); transcript http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/pdfs/woi%20asimov2.pdf (pages 5-6)
General sources
Context: Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.
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Isaac Asimov 303
American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni… 1920–1992Related quotes
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Bella!: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington, Saturday Review Press (1972), p. 80.
“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.”
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Variant: This is a test to see if your mission in this life is complete, if you are alive, it isn't.
Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story
“Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t.”
Introduction to Crash Course World History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I&list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9
YouTube
“The universe is an intelligence test”
As quoted in Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) by Robert Anton Wilson, p. 170
"A Universe in Your Backyard," in Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1996) ed. John Brockman.