Theoretical and experimental physicists are now studying nothing at all-the vacuum. But that nothingness contains all of being.
Heinz PagelsWe surely stand at the threshold of a great adventure of the human spiritรณ a new synthesis of knowledge, a potential integration of art and science, a deeper grasp of human psychology, a deepening of the symbolic representations of our existence and feelings as given in religion and culture, the formation of an international order based on cooperation and nonviolent competition. It seems not too much to hope for these things.
Heinz PagelsScience has explored the microcosmos and the macrocosmos; we have a good sense of the lay of the land. The great unexplored frontier is complexity.
Heinz PagelsScience is expanding, and with it our vision of the universe. although this new and constantly changing view may not always give us comfort, it does have the virtue of truth according to our most effective resources for acquiring knowledge. No philosophy, moral outlook, or religion can be inconsistent with the findings of science and hope to endure among educated people.
Heinz PagelsPossession of a program with unique analytic capabilities puts a scientist in as much of a priveleged position to make new discoveries as the possession of a powerful telescope.
Heinz PagelsA 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.
Heinz Pagels