My thesis, paradoxically, and a little provocatively, but nonetheless genuinely, is simply this : PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST.The abandonment of superstitious beliefs about the existence of Phlogiston, the Cosmic Ether, Absolute Space and Time, ..., or Fairies and Witches, was an essential step along the road to scientific thinking. Probability, too, if regarded as something endowed with some kind of objective existence, is no less a misleading misconception, an illusory attempt to exteriorize or materialize our true probabilistic beliefs.
Bruno de FinettiRelated topics
abandonment absolute attempt essential ether existence kind less misconception misleading objective phlogiston probability road something space step thesis thinking timeRelated quotes
We do not have a complete and satisfying knowledge of the world. We are reduced to the simple conclusion that everywhere in the world there is life like ourselves and that all life is shrouded in mystery. A true acquaintance with the world consists in being filled with a sense of the mystery of existence and life. This mystery becomes only more mysterious with every advance in scientific research. To be filled with the mystery of life is like that which is called in the language of mysticism the "wise ignorance," an ignorance which is nonetheless knowledge of the essential.
Albert Schweitzer
We must assume, at least for the time, the existence of certain great facts in Nature. I do not mean that our man of the world, in taking his first step towards the Path, need either know or recognize these facts. Facts in Nature do not change either with our believing or non-believing. Facts of Nature remain facts whether we know them or not, and since we are here in the realm of Nature, and under the order of law, the knowledge of the facts and the knowledge of the law are not essential for the steps which lead man to the Path.
Annie Besant
A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
Albert Einstein
If you would have some idea of what the probable universe is like, then examine your own dreams, looking for those events which do not have any strong resemblances to the physical events of waking existence. Look for dream individuals with whom you are not acquainted in normally conscious life. Look for landscapes that appear bizarre or alien, for all of these exist somewhere. You have perceived them. They do not exist in the space you know but neither are they non-existant (sic), mere imaginative toys of the dreaming mind, without substance.
Robert Butts
It is the profoundest of cosmic ironies. The divine power, our true spiritual essence, does not achieve perfection until it hits the ‘rock' bottom of the cosmos – the dense and crude earth. It remains imperfect until the moment of entombment for the simple reason that until that dark nadir is reached the experiential adventure of existence remains incomplete, and Self is not yet endowed with the entire spectrum of the light of consciousness – from spirit to matter – from the highest high to the lowest low.
Lon Milo DuQuette
