There was emptiness more profound than the void between the stars, for which there was no here and there and before and after, and yet out of that void the entire plenum of existence sprang forth.

A good simulation, be it a religious myth or scientific theory, gives us a sense of mastery over experience. To represent something symbolically, as we do when we speak or write, is somehow to capture it, thus making it one's own. But with this appropriation comes the realization that we have denied the immediacy of reality and that in creating a substitute we have but spun another thread in the web of our grand illusion.

Science shows us what exists but not what to do about it.

The world changed from having the determinism of a clock to having the contingency of a pinball machine.

While we can prove that almost all numbers in the continuum are random, we cannot prove that any specific number is indeed random.

What is the universe? Is it a great 3D movie in which we are the unwilling actors? Is it a cosmic joke, a giant computer, a work of art by a Supreme Being or simply an experiment? The problem in trying to understand the universe is that we have nothing to compare it to.

Our capacity for fulfillment can come only through faith and feelings. But our capacity for survival must come from reason and knowledge.