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Quote by Michael Polanyi

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Science, Faith and Society

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Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi, an economic consultant, was born on March 11, 1891, in Hungary and passed away on February 22, 1976, in the United States. He had a profound impact on the field of economics, particularly in the areas of knowledge management and innovation theory. more

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“學生在做科學實驗時，也經常發生這種情況。通常學生都知道實驗會出現怎樣的結果，所以他們會動一些手腳，努力讓結果更漂亮。在讀取計量器的刻度時，會將數值讀得高一點，或是低一點，當得出接近理想的結果時，就會感到滿足，完全沒有發現自己犯了根本性的錯誤。在判斷實驗是否正確時，最好事先不知道會得出怎樣的結果，同樣地，我認為不告訴你們那片拼圖是誰會比較好，這就是我剛才說的，希望答案具有客觀性。”

ScienceFallacyLogical ThinkingExperiment
Book:Silent Parade
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“And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste, These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes—how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know...So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need had I of so many efforts? The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more.”

PhilosophyScience
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
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“And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes —how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know.…So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need had I of so many efforts? The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more. I have returned to my beginning. I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, apprehend the world. Were I to trace its entire relief with my finger, I should not know any more.”

PhilosophyScience
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
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“If anything in the universe is sacred or valuable, it’s life itself. We should love our lives deeply. The universe has no other way to understand itself apart from life, and it does so in many different forms. Life gives meaning to the universe; there’s no need for any additional purpose to life. Simply being alive is a complete and fulfilling experience in itself.”

InspirationalScienceAtheismRationality
Book:For Humans To Know: New Revised Edition
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