A Quote by William Poundstone
The best paradoxes raise questions about what kinds of contradictions can occur-what species of impossibilities are possible.
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There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the false. Rather they are the fruitful and the barren; the paradoxes which produce life and the paradoxes that merely announce death. Nearly all modern paradoxes merely announce death.
Science will always raise philosophical questions like, is any scientific theory or model correct? How do we know? Are unobserved things real? etc. and it seems to me of great importance that these questions are not just left to scientists, but that there are thinkers who make it their business to think as clearly and slowly about these questions as it is possible to. Great scientists do not always make the best philosophers.
We have not been asking the serious questions about the future of our species, questions sci-fi regularly explores by showing us the best and worst of what could be.
Two forms or species are sympatric, if they occur together, that is if their areas of distribution overlap or coincide. Two forms (or species) are allapatric, if they do not occur together, that is if they exclude each other geographically. The term allopatric is primarily useful in denoting geographic representatives.
There are many of these apparent philosophical paradoxes or contradictions which don't concern me anymore.
Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?
It is not that I love contradictions: life is contradictory. Existence itself is possible only through contradictions.
Perhaps walking is best imagined as an 'indicator species,' to use an ecologist's term. An indicator species signifies the health of an ecosystem, and its endangerment or diminishment can be an early warning sign of systemic trouble. Walking is an indicator species for various kinds of freedom and pleasures: free time, free and alluring space, and unhindered bodies.
The dream unites the grossest contradictions, permits impossibilities, sets aside the knowledge that influences us by day, and exposes us as ethically and morally obtuse.
Newt Gingrich said that this executive producer is weird and it raises - does raise questions about possible conflicts. The FCC regulates NBC corporations can try to curry favor with the president by placing their products on the show [Celebrity Apprentice].
When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, 'How long do you think our species might last?' I've read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about two million years. Is it possible we can have an average life span as a species? And do you picture us two million years more or a million and a half years, or 5,000?
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.
Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.
. . . in one sense a foundation is a security blanket: If you meticulously follow the rules laid down, no paradoxes or contradictions will arise. In reality there is now no guarantee of this sort of security . . .
I'm proud to be a crime novelist. What I've chosen is the best way to convey the questions I'm trying to raise.
I find contemporary Holocausts against other species so unbearable as to make life itself a fundamental question mark. Are we a demonic, suicidal species? Can good conquer evil? And if so, when will that renaissance of virtue occur? This is truly "psychology today."
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