![Ever since [ Copernicus], writers eager to drive the lesson home have urged us [...] to abandon all sentimental egoism, and to see ourselves objectively in the true perspective of time and space. What precisely does this mean? In a full 'main feature' film, recapitulating faithfully the complete history of the universe, the rise of human beings from the first beginnings of man to the achievements of the twentieth century would flash by in a single second. Alternatively, if we decided to examine the universe objectively in the sense of paying equal attention to portions of equal mass, this would result in a lifelong preoccupation with interstellar dust, relieved only at brief intervals by a survey of incandescent masses of hydrogen - not in a thousand million lifetimes would the turn come to give man even a second's notice. It goes without saying that no one - scientists included - looks at the universe in this way, whatever lip-service is given to 'objectivity. (Michael Polanyi)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/25/michael-polanyi-abandon-attention-450725.webp)
Ever since [ Copernicus], writers eager to drive the lesson home have urged us [...] to abandon all sentimental egoism, and to see ourselves objectively in the true perspective of time and space. What precisely does this mean? In a full 'main feature' film, recapitulating faithfully the complete history of the universe, the rise of human beings from the first beginnings of man to the achievements of the twentieth century would flash by in a single second. Alternatively, if we decided to examine the universe objectively in the sense of paying equal attention to portions of equal mass, this would result in a lifelong preoccupation with interstellar dust, relieved only at brief intervals by a survey of incandescent masses of hydrogen - not in a thousand million lifetimes would the turn come to give man even a second's notice. It goes without saying that no one - scientists included - looks at the universe in this way, whatever lip-service is given to 'objectivity.
Michael PolanyiRelated topics
attention century drive dust egoism equal feature film full given history home human hydrogen incandescent man mass mean notice objectivity preoccupation result rise saying second see sense single space survey thousand time turn way whatever copernicus looksRelated quotes
The Definition in the Elements, according to Clavius, is this: Magnitudes are said to be in the same Reason [ratio], a first to a second, and a third to a fourth, when the Equimultiples of the first and third according to any Multiplication whatsoever are both together either short of, equal to, or exceed the Equimultiples of the second and fourth, if those be taken, which answer one another.... Such is Euclid's Definition of Proportions; that scare-Crow at which the over modest or slothful Dispositions of Men are generally affrighted: they are modest, who distrust their own Ability, as soon as a Difficulty appears, but they are slothful that will not give some Attention for the learning of Sciences; as if while we are involved in Obscurity we could clear ourselves without Labour. Both of 300 which Sorts of Persons are to be admonished, that the former be not discouraged, nor the latter refuse a little Care and Diligence when a Thing requires some Study.
Isaac Barrow
I cannot believe that in the twentieth century the British people are by their deliberate vote going to constitute this assembly – a fraction of whom no doubt are men of real eminence and dignity, but the great majority of whom are quite ordinary people of the well-to-do class with all the narrowest prejudices and special interests of that class – I cannot believe that you by your votes are going to constitute them the main foundation on which the governing power in our land is reposed. I cannot believe the middle classes and the working classes, who after all have only to use their voting strength to get their own way, are going to degrade and cast away their own voting powers which their fathers won for them in the past...I cannot believe that the electors are going obsequiously to hand over their most vital constitutional right, namely, to choose the Chamber that governs the Government, to an antiquated body of titled persons utterly beyond their control.
Winston Churchill
In the last centuries of the empire, educational standards and literacy had fallen. In the dulled heads of the masses, distracted by cheap food and the barbaric spectacles of the coliseums, the values on which Rome had been founded and the ancient rationalism of the Greeks had been replaced by mysticism and superstition. It was-Honorius had explained to his pupil-as if a whole culture was losing its mind. People were forgetting how to think, and soon they would forget they had forgotten. And, to Honorius's thinking, Christianity only exacerbated that problem.
"You know, Augustine warned us that belief in the old myths was fading-even a century and a half ago, as the dogma of the Christians took root. And with the loss of the myths, so vanishes the learning of a thousand years, which are codified in those myths, and the monolithic dogmas of the Church will snuff out rational inquiry for ten more centuries. The light is fading, Athalric.”.
Stephen Baxter
Our military force at this moment is as efficient in discipline as it is in numbers; and this not only in the regular army, but in the militia, volunteers, and other descriptions of force. We have six hundred thousand men in arms, besides a navy of two hundred thousand. The masculine energies of the nation were never more conspicuous, and the country never at any period of its history stood in so proud and glorious a position, as at present. After a conflict for fifteen years, against an enemy whose power had been progressively increasing, we are still able to maintain the war with augmenting force and a population, by the pressure of external circumstances, consolidated into an impregnable military mass. Our physical strength has risen when it has been called for; and if we do not present the opposition of numerous fortresses to an invader as the continent does, we present the more insuperable barrier of a high-spirited, patriotic, and enthusiastic people.
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space?...
Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective - who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled - can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. ... The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache ... This shattering recognition of our mortality is at the root of far more mental illness than I suspect even psychiatrists are aware.
Stanley Kubrick
