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Quote by Carlo Rovelli

“We are stories, contained within the twenty complicated centimeters behind our eyes, lines drawn by traces left by the (re)mingling together of things in the world, and oriented toward the direction of increasing entropy, in a rather particular corner of this inmense, chaotic universe.”

Quote by Carlo Rovelli

Work

The Order of Time

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Author

Carlo Rovelli
Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer. He is renowned for his research in the field of quantum gravity, particularly in the area of quantum theory of spacetime. Rovelli's work extends beyond the realm of science, as he is also dedicated to communicating complex physical concepts in an accessible way to the general public. more

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“The universe is changing, the universe is expanding. Everything is constantly changing. So when a human being remains unchanged, like a rock, clinging to what he or she is throughout an entire lifetime, it’s a tragedy. A human being has to be fluid, changing, expanding, developing, and at any given moment, has to ask, 'Why am I suffering? Why does this bother me? Why am I searching for something? Why do I hate such and such thing? Why can’t I forgive and why can’t I liberate myself from this?' All of my work is that, it’s the development of a character who slowly but surely expands, self-actualizes, and reaches a higher spiritual level. My characters obtain wisdom. To arrive at such wisdom is to arrive at the joy of living.”

“i'm looking for the face i had before the world was made. I was the primordial flaring forth, the gravitational waves, the whirling galaxies, and the exploding supernovas that would become stars and planets. I was the steaming planet Earth, the bacteria awash in the sea, and the early eukaryotes and multicellular animals. I exploded in the Cambrian explosion, stumbled onto land, walked with dinosaurs, saw trees and flowers appear, walked upright in Africa, and walked on the moon. I felt the embrace of gravity. I was one with all that had been and all that was to be. I experienced subjective mystical communion with the evolutionary, emergent universe. I was the universe. We know not where the journey leads, nor whether a final destination is even a meaningful concept. The attraction is the inherent thrill of participating in a grand creative endeavor for which participation is its own reward”

“Say we’re only here because of stars and explosions. Things 
don’t need to realize themselves to survive, yet every man carries with him a dimension of irresolution regarding his existence that insecurely colors everything he does in a day. Intuition. A deep knowing. A recurrent dream. Have you ever had a dream that makes more sense than life? Explain coincidence. Explain the start. What is déjà vu? And is there not something eerie about being born into a world that was already prepared? It’s not that we want a God, it’s that everyone secretly knows there’s supposed to be one.”

“The quarrel between science and religion, then, is not a matter of how universe came about, or which approach can provide the best "explanation" for it. It is a disagreement about how far back one has to go, though not in the chronological sense. For theology, science does not start far back enough - not in the sense that it fails to posit a Creator, but in the sense that it does not ask questions such as why there is anything in the first place, or why what we do have is actually intellible to us. Perhaps these are phony questions anyway; some philosophers certainly think so. But theologians, as Rowan Williams has argued, are interested in the question of why we ask for explanations at all, or why we assume that the universe hangs together in a way that makes explanations possible. Where do our notions of explanation, regularity, and intelligibility come from? How do we explain rationality and intelligibility themselves, or is this question either superfluous or too hard to answer? Can we not account for rationality because to do so is to presuppose it? Whatever we think of such queries, science as we know it is possible only because the world displays a certain internal order and coherence - possible, that is to say, for roughly aesthetic reasons.”