The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in term….

The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time..

The target of power is more interesting than its quantity..

As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation ….

I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any ….

I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics. The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon….

In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons, it is sometimes ha….

Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction. If time is an arrow, that arrow points toward order. The future is pattern, or….

I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages. I'd like to use my time more….

Every essay - the subject matter of every essay - is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist is writing about ….

The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, th….

For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about a particular arrangement ….

When I used to play golf. It's a terrible miserable game. It's incredibly frustrating. In 18 holes you make 150 horrible shots off in the woods, in t….

We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways. To that end, I believe that we should make room fo….

The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it..

I consider myself a spiritual atheist. I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for….

Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness is no ….

Everyone shares the same fate..

For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling….

I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of ... shall we say, power..

I value my correspondence with writers...I was in New York and had lunch with Oliver Sachs and compared notes with him - he is someone I really like.….