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Quote by Rochelle Forrester

“all societies have certain needs or desires and they meet these needs by utilizing the resources in their environments. The ability to utilize those resources changes as their knowledge of their environment changes. In particular they develop knowledge of the properties of the resources in their environment and how the resources in their environment can be used to meet human needs and desires. Human knowledge of the resources is dynamic; it changes over time. Greater knowledge of the properties of the resources in the environment allows new ways in which human needs can be meet by exploiting resources in the environment. Our knowledge of our environment grows in a particular order; certain knowledge will inevitably be discovered before other knowledge. The order of our discoveries about nature determines the order of technological change and scientific discoveries in human society. The order of our discoveries of both the properties and structure of nature depend upon the relationship between nature and us. We discover these things in an order from that which is closest to us, to that which is further away, or perhaps in an order from the simplest to the more complex. It is the structure of the universe and our place in it, which determines the order in which our knowledge of nature will grow and this determines what technological and scientific options are available to meet our needs and desires.”

Quote by Rochelle Forrester

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Rochelle Forrester

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“Here is what a person is: a set of basically compatible long-range interests that have co-opted a sufficient army of short-range interests into their coalition to maintain stable equilibrium. A person is that person just so long as her revealed preferences at the whole-person level don’t significantly cycle. This is why we can model people as (nonstraightforward) economic agents—just as we sometimes can, and should, model countries. Of course, a biological H. sapiens individual goes through changing external circumstances during its biography, so no one coalition of interests will stay in power forever. Becker and other mature anthropocentric neoclassicists have missed this point, whereas a Samuelsonian neoclassicist can accept it without difficulty. At the same time, the social pressures that discipline self-narratives tend to make people more and more like straightforward economic agents for increasing stretches of their biographies. These pressures are not external to their personal utility functions, as Sen supposes. They are what make (whole-) personal utility functions possible in the first place. Society does not struggle to civilize inner Robinson Crusoes, for people don’t biologically have such things. Instead, human society gives rise to something new under the evolutionary sun: creatures that act increasingly like the economic agents familiar among our asocial relatives, who nevertheless turn the trick of achieving the powerful network efficiencies that the asocial cannot.”

“A fair social contract is then taken to be an equilibrium in the game of life that calls for the use of strategies which, if used in the game of morals, would never leave a player with an incentive to exercise his right of appeal to the device of the original position. So a fair social contract is an equilibrium in the game of morals, but it must never be forgotten that it is also an equilibrium in the game of life; otherwise evolution will sweep it away. Indeed, the game of morals is nothing more than a coordination device for selecting one of the equilibria in the game of life.”

“Social and cultural change derived from increasing human knowledge is not random and so can be scientifically understood. We can not predict the future of social and cultural change as we do not know what future discoveries we will make. This is analogous to biological evolution where changes in living species are unpredictable as we do not know what changes will occur in the environment of those species. However biological evolution does make changes in living species rationally understandable, just as an analysis of the order of discovery of the human environment makes social and cultural change rationally understandable.”

“I invite you to embrace a new reality. It is not a matter of religion – it is a matter of fact, a matter of science, a matter of experiment, and a matter of awareness. I invite you to awaken to the infinite life you already have, no matter what your worldview. I invite you to take up responsibility for your own evolutionary destiny. I invite you to take advantage of your priceless human opportunity to make a definitive turn toward ultimate security, complete freedom, and unbounded happiness. (p. 23, The Nature of Reality)”

“I more and more have come to feel that if anything positive could result from my teaching, any real benefit for any person, it should be that they get just a hint of the reality of their own former and future lives, that they diminish just the tiniest bit their usual „only this one life“ sense of cosmic disconnection, loneliness, alienation, and meaninglessness. I want everyone to be able to see more clearly their culturally common belief that, „My life only began when I was born and it ends when I die. So my responsibility to the universe is limited and even my responsibility to myself is limited. Nothing really matters because we‘ll be nothing in the end.“ If nothing else,I want to help you free yourself from that trap, that imprisoning way of thinking. To intensify your spiritual evolution, the first and most important step you must take is to embrace your boundlessness, take responsibility for your infinite continuity, and live your immortality here and now. (pp. 3-4, The Nature of Reality)”