In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.
Interpretation
Truth is often obscured by uncertainty, both in science and life.
In this quote, Richard P. Feynman suggests that truth is complex and often clouded by various uncertainties. He implies that both in the realm of physics and in human interactions, the absolute truth is rarely straightforward, and our understanding of it is often complicated by doubts and ambiguity.
In practice
During a lecture on the philosophy of science, I quoted Feynman to illustrate the complexities of establishing scientific truth.
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.
It's been interesting to see how similar audiences in the East and West are, actually, and how it makes you realize that when politicians emphasize the differences between our cultures, it's usually because it benefits them more so than us.
Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God.
The world is his who has money to go over it.
My father has never once asked me a question, any question. There's a freedom that came from that. It allowed me to create my own way of thinking.
To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty... this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
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