“The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are.” WorldBelieveMeanIdeasEndsAgeHumanityFallViewsKnownTechnologyProgressMankindObviousSeekingAbsurdRepeatsDelusionTrapsDesirableScience And TechnologyApocalypticScientific KnowledgeGreat Progress Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
“The pretention that some of us are better than others, I don't think is a very good thing. And who is contributing what to our progress in science is not so obvious and many who don't get that Nobel Prize are better than people... than some of us that do get the Nobel Prize. I think we should not be interested in prizes, we should be interested in learning about nature.” PeopleThinkingShouldProgressGood ThingsVery GoodObviousPrizeNobelContributingNobel PrizeProgress In Science Author:Jack Steinberger
“Philosophical progress changes what we take to be "intuitively" obvious, and this change covers up the tracks of the laborious arguments that preceded the changes. We don't see these changes, because we see with them.” ProgressArgumentPhilosophicalTrackObviousCover Ups Author:Rebecca Goldstein
“If there is such a thing as philosophical progress, then why - unlike scientific progress - is it so invisible? Philosophical progress is invisible because it is incorporated into our points of view. What was torturously secured by complex argument comes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance.” IfsForgetViewsProgressArgumentPhilosophicalComplexesObviousIntuitionPoint Of ViewInvisibleForget ItSecuredScientific Progress Author:Rebecca Goldstein
“Machines already are much smarter than us at so many things. I mean, try to multiply two 10-digit numbers with each other or, you know, sift through a thousand documents. So there's lots of things that machines are better at including in mental task than us. There's many more that they're not as good at, but the direction is pretty obvious and the progress is clear.” TryingMeanProgressObvious Author:Erik Brynjolfsson