“Knapsack of the Metaphysicians.- Those who boast so mightily of the scientificality of their metaphysics should receive no answer; it is enough to pluck at the bundle which, with a certain degree of embarrassment, they keep concealed behind their back; if one succeeds in opening it, the products of that scientificality come to light, attended by their blushes: a dear little Lord God, a nice little immortality, perhaps a certain quantity of spiritualism, and in any event a whole tangled heap of 'wretched poor sinner' and Pharisee arrogance.” IfsShouldLittlesEnoughPhilosophyWholeLightCertainAnswersPoorBehindsLordNiceEventsProductsSucceedDegreesDearOpeningImmortalityArroganceSinnerQuantityMetaphysicsBoastWretchedEmbarrassmentConcealedTangledPluckBundlesSpiritualismLord GodPharisees Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
“Everything that civilisation has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone's list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.” HumansMayWarMightWould BeLastsPovertyAchieveEventsProductsOffersDiseaseCreatingToolsListsArtificial IntelligenceHuman HistoryCivilisationHuman Intelligence Author:Stephen Hawking
“The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.” NeedsYearsIdeasStoriesEarthReligionOrderThreeHalfAtheismEventsProductsThousandMajorsArgumentMiracleClaimsIncludingOpponentsAbandonCollapseBiblicalFloodThousand YearsFossilsRelianceLiteralAssertionGenesisDistortionInvokeOf ContextCitations Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“When harvests are exuberant, joy and health follow in their train; but let delusive prosperity draw industry from agriculture; let an insiduous disease attack one of its important products; let an insect, or a parasite, fasten on a single esculent, and mark the effect upon commerce and human life. Upon such an event all business is deranged.” HumansImportantJoyEffectsEventsProductsIndustryDiseaseDrawsMarkTrainProsperityHuman LifeCommerceAgricultureHarvestInsectsParasitesDeranged Author:Elias Hasket Derby
“I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which represented the state of departed souls in such a light,as would render it eligible for human kind, that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking to nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.” ShouldHumansKindIdeasSoulStatesPhilosophyLightEyeDeathLyingReligionFireMankindEventsProductsFineModelsDevilMereRegionsAfterlifeVentureShockingFuryGloomDepartedGeneralitiesCerberusDeparted Soul Book:Dialogues and Natural History of Religion Source: Dialogues and Natural History of Religion
“Nothing is truly unnatural, because everything that exists, including human intelligence, is a product of nature. If human intelligence can devise ways for the genes from two men to result in a child, their doing so is an entirely natural event.” IfsMenWayHumansChildrenTwoNaturalResultsEventsProductsIncludingGenesUnnaturalHuman Intelligence Book:The Reason of Things: Living with Philosophy Source: The Reason of Things: Living with Philosophy
“Bernie [Ecclestone] has not been shy to say one or two controversial things. The last person in the UK who described his product as being crap in public was one Gerald Ratner - and he was gone immediately. But not Bernie! What it tells you is that the demand for live sporting rights, the demand for global or regional events, is so powerful that you brush aside some things because there aren't so many of these events.” PersonsTwoLastsPowerfulGoneRightsEventsProductsDemandShyCrapBrushesControversial Author:Martin Sorrell
“If our brands are going to be in print and on mobile handsets and in video and events, we have to acknowledge that the playing fields are going to be different than a print-only product or a print product with extensions to it.” IfsDifferentEventsFieldsProductsVideoBrandsAcknowledgePrintExtensionsMobilePlaying Fields Author:Norman Pearlstine