David Deutsch Quotes
28 quotes
in 452 categories
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I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics…
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The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical…
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Like every other destruction of optimism, whether in a whole civilisation or in a single individual, these must have been unspeakable catastrophes for those who…
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The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which…
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Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow.
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Base metals can be transmuted into gold by stars, and by intelligent beings who understand the processes that power stars, but by nothing else in…
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Is the human race a universal constructor?
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It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment.
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Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense.
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Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge…
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If you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it.
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Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted…
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Discovering a new explanation is inherently an act of creativity.
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No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance.
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If we can't program it, we can't understand it.
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If you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite, and the finite is parochial... the best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and…
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Time travel may be achieved one day, or it may not. But if it is, it should not require any fundamental change in world-view, at…
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Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.
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The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level…
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The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.
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