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Metaphysics
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*Every code of morality
is based on and derived from a metaphysics, that is: from a certain view
of the nature of the universe in which man has to live and act.
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-Ayn Rand
Private correspondence to John Hospers (academic philosopher), April 29,1961
Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995
Chapter 7, "Letters to a Philosopher"
Michael S. Berliner, ed.
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The more restrictions there are on what
matter and energy can do, the more knowledge human beings can attain.
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-Carl Sagan
Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Sand
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*Modern physics and
chemistry have reduced the complexity of the sensible world to an
astonishing simplicity: three units put together in various patterns make,
essentially, everything.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter IX, "The Lives of the Stars"
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*If the general picture of
an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still
more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big
Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all
matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does
that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God
created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we
wish courageously to pursue the question, we must of course ask next where
God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a
step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question.
Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude
that the universe has always existed?
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter X, "The Edge of Forever"
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