Scientific Determinism Quotes & Sayings

Dreams are evidence that we are creatures who produce more meaning than we can ourselves understand. — Mark Kingwell

I'm just a basketball player, you know? Just put me where you need me. — Lamar Odom

How is it possible, as you get to know someone better, to realize how good his past is at not letting you find out anything more about him? — Angelos Michalopoulos

I Buzz Lightyear love you. You know - to infinity and beyond?" "Yeah? — Susan Andersen

All high mathematics serves to do is to beget higher mathematics. — Ashim Shanker

The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means. But it asserts that the future is as little changeable as is the past. Everybody knows what we mean when we say that the past cannot be changed. It is in precisely the same sense that the future cannot be changed, according to metaphysical determinism. — Karl Popper

The determinism of the physical laws simply reflects the determinism of the method of inference. This soulless nature of the scientific world need not worry those who are persuaded that the main significances of our environment are of a more spiritual character. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

To the best of our scientific understanding, determinism and randomness have divided the entire cake between them, leaving not even a crumb for 'freedom'. The sacred word 'freedom' turns out to be, just like 'soul', an empty term that carries no discernible meaning. Free will exists only in the imaginary stories we humans have invented. — Yuval Noah Harari

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.
- Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray; quoted in: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffmann — Albert Einstein

Hiphop has remained in an infantile stage and has not been allowed to grow. — Slick Rick

The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry. — Max Planck

The high temperatures and the coughing had left them with a wise look, a sometimes sly look of the old, the tired, the ones who just lay and didn't care if the sun came up, or if it went down, and stayed down. They scared me; their haunted faces took me into dreams of death. — V.C. Andrews

Which do you think is more valuable to humanity?
a. Finding ways to tell humans that they have free will despite the incontrovertible fact that their actions are completely dictated by the laws of physics as instantiated in our bodies, brains and environments? That is, engaging in the honored philosophical practice of showing that our notion of "free will" can be compatible with determinism?
or
b. Telling people, based on our scientific knowledge of physics, neurology, and behavior, that our actions are predetermined rather than dictated by some ghost in our brains, and then sussing out the consequences of that conclusion and applying them to society?
Of course my answer is b). — Jerry A. Coyne

Creative attention means really giving our attention to what does not exist. — Simone Weil

Until now, human organization could only be based upon something negative which could not be conquered: SCARCITY, and something false: PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY... No wonder instead of producing stability, it produced the exact opposite.
The current human organization based upon dealing with the consequences of scarcity and being considered responsible for our individual characteristics which we could never have chosen (our nature, our nurture, our "soul", and all the choices they engender), will always lead to an irrational, hence unstable human organization causing perpetual conflicts, which is no organization at all.

Today, we have the luxury to initiate a rational self-organization based upon two positives:
-our HUMAN CONSENSUS; our common desires shared by all, and
-the SCIENTIFIC PROJECT to achieve them. — Haroutioun Bochnakian

I'm a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man's house on fire, you don't hear these little Negroes talking about 'our government is in trouble'. They say, 'The government is in trouble.' — Malcolm X

Damn, he was good. I'd been professionally sullied without a single item of clothing removed. — Kylie Scott

When I speak of tantric yoga, I'm speaking of a type of yoga that is best practiced by persons who live in society. It's a yoga for the last yuga. — Frederick Lenz

We're presently in the midst of a third intellectual revolution. The first came with Newton: the planets obey physical laws. The second came with Darwin: biology obeys genetic laws. In today's third revolution, were coming to realize that even minds and societies emerge from interacting laws that can be regarded as computations. Everything is a computation. — Rudy Rucker

"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition. — Benjamin Franklin

Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions. — Eric Chaisson

Live! It's no good if you just think about it. — Marty Rubin

Make excuses to work out. Go for walks and enjoy scenery. You'd be surprised how many calories you can burn during the day if you just make an effort and become more aware. Also remember to start slow, don't go into it too hard if you are just starting. — Miesha Tate

In the ensuing chapters, we will look in some detail at particular manifestations of the modern scientific ideology and the false paths down which it has led us. We will consider how biological determinism has been used to explain and justify inequalities within and between societies and to claim that those inequalities can never be changed. We will see how a theory of human nature has been developed using Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to claim that social organization is also unchangeable because it is natural. We will see how problems of health and disease have been located within the individual so that the individual becomes a problem for society to cope with rather than society becoming a problem for the individual. And we will see how simple economic relationships masquerading as facts of nature can drive the entire direction of biological research and technology. — Richard C. Lewontin

This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. — Stephen King