Author of quotes: Stanislaw LEM. Page 4

In the history countless times there were thinkers who believed that the process of knowledge really can start from scratch and clean the logic clearly lead to the only correct result. This illusion of many pushed to desperate attempts. But the idea is empty. It is impossible to start anything without assumptions, regardless of whether they are understood or not. These assumptions are defined and the biological nature of man, and the amalgam of its culture. Since culture is a thin layer penetrations between organisms and habitat; culture exists only because the environment is ambiguous dictates the behavior that ensures the survival, so there is always a gap for freedom of choice. A gap, wide enough to accommodate thousands of different cultures.

If someone told Marie Curie that, in fifty years open it, the radioactivity will result in megatons and overkill'a*, it may not be willing to continue working, and surely not gained the peace of mind.

Every great cause has its comical or pathetically trivial side, but it does not mean that they are irrelevant to him have not.

The history of human knowledge is a series that has infinity in the limit, and philosophy is trying to reach this limit with one leap, a short circuit, which gives confidence in perfect and unshakable knowledge. Meanwhile, science moves at a small pace, like a turtle, or even seems to stomp on the spot, but in the end gets to the last frontiers, to the final border of the mind, drawn by philosophers, and, noticing any border posts, calmly goes yourself further. Well, how could philosophers not fall into despair? One of the forms of such despair was positivism with its very specific aggressiveness: he posed as a faithful ally of science, being, in essence, its liquidator. All that was corroding and undermining philosophy, destroying great discoveries, was to be subjected to an approximate punishment - and positivism, this imaginary champion of science, was not slow to convict it, stating that science really could not reveal anything, because it was only abbreviated record of experience. Positivism attempted to saddle science, forcing it to admit its powerlessness in everything related to the field of transcendence (which, however, it did not succeed). The history of philosophy is the history of successive digressions. At first she strove to discover the absolute categories of the universe, then the absolute categories of the mind, and in the meantime, with the accumulation of knowledge, her helplessness was more and more clearly seen. After all, every philosopher involuntarily declared himself the most absolute example of the human race and even of all possible intelligent beings. On the contrary, science is precisely the transcendence of experience, crushing yesterday's categories of thinking; absolute space and time fell yesterday, today the supposedly eternal opposite between analytic and synthetic judgments, between predestination and chance, collapses. But for some reason, none of the philosophers had the idea that it is not too prudent to derive from the rules of our own thinking laws that are valid for all people and all of humanity - from the Aeolite to the era of the fading of the suns. I will express myself more sharply: to substitute oneself in conclusions as the sought-for universal human norm means to act irresponsibly. The desire to understand "everything", which is referred to at the same time, has only psychological value. Therefore, philosophy speaks much more about people's hopes, fears, drives, rather than the secrets of the universe that is completely indifferent to us, which only for one day seems to be a kingdom of eternal and unchanging laws. Even if we know such laws that no progress canceled, we cannot distinguish them from those that will be replaced by others. Therefore, in philosophers, I saw only people driven by curiosity, and not heralds of truth. Did they formulate theses on categorical imperatives or on the attitude of thinking to perception, and they began to honestly question the countless representatives of the human race? But no - they asked themselves and only themselves, over and over again crowned their own person, passing it off as an example of a reasonable person. It was this that angered me and prevented me from reading even the most profound philosophical works: before I could open the book, I came across things that were obvious to the author, but not to me; from that moment he turned to himself, referred to himself, which meant that he lost the right to make judgments that were true for me and even more so for all the other two-legs. inhabiting our planet.

We are accustomed to the clear, simple situation, when all unknown and dark stretches in front of a solid front of science, and all conquered and understood serves her rear. But in fact, no matter hidden or unknown in nature or buried in directories no one visited the libraries, something that is not included in the circulation of science, fertilizes it, all the same, that does not exist. In any era science's ability to perceive the radically new approach to the phenomena is not too large. The madness and suicide of one of the creators of thermodynamics is just one example of that*.

And why is prohibited without a license to drive on the roads, but people, completely devoid of integrity, knowledge, I do not say, - allowed to print their works freely and in any quantity? Inflation of the printed word is partly caused by the exponential increase in the number of writers but publishing policies, too. The childhood of our civilization was a time when to read and write only those truly educated people. This criterion remained in force and after the invention of printing; and although the works of fools sometimes were published (nothing), their numbers have not been astronomical - not that now. In the spill of waste paper drowning is really valuable publication: it is easier to find one good book among ten worthless than a thousand among a million.

In science there is real knowledge, and knowledge brings spiritual comfort; they do not necessarily coincide. In the Sciences of man the distinction between these two types is almost impossible. We don't know anything so badly as ourselves, not because of trying to learn, and know for certain that it has shaped the person we exclude in advance the possibility of combining the deepest need with the most ridiculous accidents?

The thought of the Creator, who is simply amused, very attractive, but then we get into a vicious circle: we are ready to consider the Creator's malicious, not because he created us that way, because we ourselves are malicious. But if man is so insignificant, so unremarkable in the face of the Universe, as science tells us, that the Manichaean myth - an obvious absurdity. Tell otherwise: if the world is created (which I do not admit), the required level of knowledge is incompatible with blunt jokes. For - this, indeed, is my motto - there can be perfectly wise of evil. The mind tells me that the Creator cannot be a small dirty dog, illusionist, which mocks the fact that he was doing. What we take for malice - perhaps a common miscalculation, a mistake; but then we come to the not yet existent theology flawed deities. And the scope of their creative activity - the same in which I do myself, that is, probabilistic statistics.

Gramophone record, which captured the angels, morally no better than the one on which is recorded a bestial roar. From the point of view of determinism the one who wanted and could have been better, was doomed to it in advance, and likewise was sealed the fate of the one who is willing and able to become better, was doomed to it in advance, and likewise was sealed the fate of the one who wanted, but could not - go not even tried - to want. The conclusion is false; the sound of fighting, recorded on the disc, not what the struggle is real.

Not all famous people are allowed to look the same. For example, it is considered acceptable to seek out the human weaknesses of the famous painters and artists, and some biographers even seem to think that the soul of an artist should not be alien to small dirty tricks. But for the great scientists still is the old stereotype. In art we have learned to see the soul chained to the body; the critic is allowed to talk about homosexuality of Oscar Wilde, but it's hard to imagine naukowego, which is at the same angle would look at the creators of physics. Give us a steadfast, sinless scientists. and historical changes in their biographies are reduced to change of place of residence. The politician may be a villain, while remaining a great politician, but the genius of git is an internal contradiction: the genius overshadowed by meanness. So says the still not canceled Canon.

Think about... the fetishist, who lives, say, in a dirty flap; that the risk of skin, produces entreaties and threats that your precious seal of the flap... It must be funny, huh? Which at the same time ashamed of his lust, and goes to his mind, and is willing to give their life for him, having risen, perhaps, to the feelings of Romeo towards Juliet. It happens. It is known fact that there are such things... situations... such that no one dares to implement them outside of his imagination... in a single moment of stunning, decay, madness, call it what you want. Then the word becomes deed. That's all.

And prudence... Oh my God... If people were sensible, we wouldn't even be here. What is reasonable in rockets that fly to the stars?

The world is not neutral, as long as:
It awakens the hope of a stable, immutable and eternal being, without being, however, neither stable nor immutable, nor eternal; hence he introduces into the hype. It allows you to understand yourself, but it involves cognition, bottomless; therefore, he is crafty. So: the world is not neutral with respect to the Mind.

The world is unfair, because:
It is easier to destroy than to create;
It is easier to torture than to bring happiness;
It is easier to destroy than to save;
It is easier to kill than to revive.