Since behind the logic of artificial intelligence there must be a programmer, a director, what is the sense in saying that behind the logic of natural intelligence there is no purpose, no director? That is our challenge.
Philosophies based on mundane sense perceptions lead us to believe that God must be remote and inaccessible – if He exists at all.
“Probability is the most important concept in modern science, especially as nobody has the slightest idea what it means.”—Bertrand Russell
“All reputable evolutionary biologists now agree that the evolution of life is directed by the process of natural selection, and by nothing else.” With these words Sir Julian Huxley summed up the consensus of learned opinion at the Darwin Centennial Celebration in 1959.
Science fiction writers often try to solve the problems of old age and death by taking advantage of the idea that a human being is essentially a complex machine.
In the laws of nature there are no mistakes. In railway cars there are first-class and second-class sections. If you purchase a second-class ticket but by mistake go to the first-class section, you will not be allowed to stay there. It is not a mistake: that is the arrangement.
The process of perception begins when light from an object enters the eye and is focused on the retina. This light stimulates a series of neurochemical reactions that ultimately reach the brain as a systematic pattern of pulses.
The scientists say that at one point the earth, was composed of dust particles floating in some gaseous material. Then in due course this colloidal suspension condensed, and formed the earth.
Modern scientists acquire knowledge, at least in principle, by what is called the hypothetico-deductive method. Using this method, they formulate hypotheses and then test them by experimental observation.
We say to the scientists. “Don’t waste time trying to make life. Try to make your life better. Try to understand what your actual spiritual identity is, so that you may become happy in this lifetime. This research should be done.
How have they created anything? They take the sand and mix it with some chemicals and make glass. They have not created the sand or the chemicals, they have taken them from the earth. How have they created anything?
That nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island is acting up. It’s been leaking radioactive steam since early Wednesday morning—the largest leak in history. And now they just found a gas bubble inside the thing, and they say if it doesn’t cool off, the gas might blow up.
The idea that life can be reduced to chemistry and physics has become very prominent in the life sciences. According to this idea, all living organisms, including human beings, are simply aggregates of molecules interacting in accordance with chemical and physical laws.
If we want to determine whether it is the theory of evolution or the theory of production that is scientifically more valid, we must test both against the fossil record. It is there alone that we will find concrete evidence of creatures that lived in bygone ages.
You can explain their madness in so many ways, but first try to understand the main idea: a very educated man—when he becomes mad, then he and his words have no value.
Bhakti is as much a science as physics, chemistry or any other science. It is based on observation and experiment, and its results are capable of verification. But bhakti is a transcendental science, and its experiments are of a different nature.
We inhabitants of earth are quite likely the only civilized beings in our galaxy. So contends a scientific study that recently won front-page attention in the “Science” section of the New York Times.