“From this new point of view, the universe I had inhabited became an object I could perceive in its entirety. It was a hypersphere embedded in a cloud of alternative states - the sum of all possible quantum trajectories from the big bang to the decay of matter. "Reality" - history as we had known or inferred it - was only the most likely of these possible trajectories. There were countless others, real in a different sense: a vast but finite set of paths not taken, a ghostly forest of quantum alternatives, the shores of an unknown sea.” DifferentRealMatterStatesBigsRealityUniverseViewsKnownPathTakenSeaObjectsCloudsPoint Of ViewForestsAlternativesPerceiveShoreDecayQuantumFiniteBangsEmbeddedTrajectoryEntirety Author:Robert Charles Wilson
“Auden, who asked two things of an imagined world-that it be somehow like ours and somehow unlike-would be Ben Marcus's ideal reader, yet even without the poet's dire program, I am altogether taken by this hilarious and sexy alternative universe. Just imagine! it is all done with words instead of mirrors, so much more reliable and so much more heartbreaking. Thus Prospero enthralls his crew.” WorldTwoDoneWould BeUniverseTakenImaginePoetReaderIdealsProgramMirrorsSexyAlternativesTwo ThingsCrewHeartbreakingAudenProspero Author:Richard Howard
“I want upon death to be buried, just like in the old days, where I decompose by the action of microorganisms, and I am dined upon by any form of creeping animal or root system that sees fit to do so.... I will have recycled back to the universe at least some of the energy that I have taken from it. And in so doing, at the conclusion of my scientific adventures, I will have come closer to the heavens than to Earth.” WantActionEarthFormUniverseEnergyHeavenAnimalTakenAdventureFitRootsConclusionBuriedExtinctionWant UOld DaysRecycledMicroorganisms Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Life is a thin narrowness of taken-for-granted, a plank over a canyon in a fog. There is something under our feet, the taken-for-granted. A table is a table, food is food, we are we - because we don't question these things. And science is the enemy because it is the questioner. Faith saves our souls alive by giving us a universe of the taken-for-granted.” LifeGivingSoulScienceLife IsUniverseEnemyTakenAliveFeetTablesGrantedFogTaken For GrantedCanyons Author:Rose Wilder Lane
“All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate.” KnowsMenTwoIdeasDifferentBodyWould BeTogetherTurnsUniverseImaginationAnimalUnitedClassTakenImpossibleEssentialsPlantSensesDisorderImperfectionLinkedCurvesFossils Author:Gottfried Leibniz
“Its taken 14 billion years for matter to gain the capacity to become conscious of itself. If this is true, it wouldn't make any sense that the whole point of enlightenment would be to escape from the whole process at the very instant that the universe is beginning to awaken to itself.” IfsLifeYearsMatterWholeWould BeSpiritualityUniverseProcessTakenEvolutionEnlightenmentConsciousGainsCapacityAwakeningBillionsInstant Author:Andrew Cohen
“You've no idea how wonderful toilet paper is until it's taken away from you by an unfeeling universe. I think it's the defining characteristic of human civilization, the ability to manufacture something decent to wipe your ass on.” ThinkingHumansIdeasUniverseAbilityTakenWonderfulCivilizationPaperAssNo IdeaCharacteristicsDecentToiletsDefiningWipeAway From YouToilet PaperHuman CivilizationUnfeeling Book:Judas Unchained Source: Judas Unchained
“My idea of that[idea of career] is constantly changing. I mostly just throw it out to the universe and I can't really do much after that. I've never taken the steps to be "successful": I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house. I've talked to people about it but I've never followed through because it gives me the creeps.” PeopleGivingI CanIdeasUniverseHouseStepsCareersSuccessfulTakenGive MeManagersBeing SuccessfulPublishingCreepsPublishing House Author:J Tillman