I have a friend who's an artist and he's sometimes taken a view which I don't agree
with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say look how beautiful it is and I'll
agree and he says you see as I as an artist can see how beautiful this is
but you as a scientist oh take this all apart and it becomes dull thing and I
think that he's kind of nutty. First of all the beauty that he sees is
available to other people and to me too. I believe although I may not be quite as
refined as aesthetically as he is that I can't appreciate the beauty of a flower.
At the same time I see the much more about the flower than he sees. I could
imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions and so I would also
have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension or one centimeter
there's also beauty at a smaller dimensions. The inner structure also the
processes. The fact that the colors and the flower evolved in order to attract
insects to pollinate it is interesting. It means that insects can see the color.
It adds a question. Does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms?
Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the
science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery in the awe of a
flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts. If you expected science
to give all the answers to the wonderful questions about what we are, where we're
going, what the meaning of the universe is and so on then I think you could easily
become the solution to then look for some mystic answer to these problems. How a
scientist can take a mystic answer I don't know because the whole spirit is to
never mind that. I don't understand that. But anyhow if you think of it
the way I think of what we're doing is we're exploring. We're trying to find
out as much as we can about the world. People say to me are you looking for the
ultimate laws of physics? No I'm not. I'm just looking to find out more about
the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law that explains
everything so be it. That would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's
like an onion with millions of layers and we just sick and tired of looking at
the layers then that's the way it is. But whatever way it comes out its nature is
there and she's gonna come out the way she is and therefore when we go to
investigate it we shouldn't pre-decide what it is we're trying to do except to
find out more about it. You see one thing is I can live without an uncertainty
and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to
have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible
beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things but I'm
not absolutely sure of anything and the many things I don't know anything about
but I don't have to know an answer. I don't have I don't feel frightened by
not knowing things by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any
purpose which is the way it really is as far as I can tell possible. It doesn't
frighten me and so all together I can't believe the special stories that have
been made up about our relationship to the universe at large because they
seem to be too simple too connected too local too provincial the earth he came
to the earth one of the aspects of God came to the earth mind you and look at
what's out there how can it isn't in proportion. Anyway it's no use arguing I
can't argue it I'm just trying to tell you with the scientific view my father's
view that we should look to see what's true and what maybe may not be true once
you start doubting which I think is to me is a very fundamental part of my soul
is to doubt and to ask when you doubt and ask it gets a little harder to believe
you
