We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
Stephen HawkingRead
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of consciousness and awareness in appreciating beauty in the universe.
Stephen Hawking's quote suggests that while there may be countless sets of physical laws and values that could result in beautiful worlds, without conscious beings to observe and appreciate that beauty, such worlds hold no intrinsic meaning. It emphasizes the significance of awareness and the role of observers in giving value to the universe and its wonders.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the significance of awareness in art appreciation.
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.
I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century.
In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.
There is an overabundance of rational reasons to say no to factory-farmed meat: It is the No. 1 cause of global warming, it systematically forces tens of billions of animals to suffer in ways that would be illegal if they were dogs, it is a decisive factor in the development of swine and avian flus, and so on.
Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.
Social reality is so complicated that, once you join one team or the other, you become specialized in detecting certain patterns, but you become blind to other patterns.
God meant for things to be much easier than we have made them
There is power in naming racism for what it is, in shining a bright light on it, brighter than any torch or flashlight. A thing as simple as naming it allows us to root it out of the darkness and hushed conversation where it likes to breed like roaches. It makes us acknowledge it. Confront it.
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