Top 15 Jim Holt Quotes (2024 Update)

Jim Holt Quote: “Consistency is the virtue of small minds, and Spinoza had a great mind – he was inconsistent all over the place.”

1. “Consistency is the virtue of small minds, and Spinoza had a great mind – he was inconsistent all over the place.”

Jim Holt Quote: “Suppose there were nothing. Then there would be no laws; for laws, after all, are something. If there were no laws, then everything would be permitted. If everything were permitted, then nothing would be forbidden. So if there were nothing, nothing would be forbidden. Thus nothing is self-forbidding. Therefore, there must be something. QED.”

2. “Suppose there were nothing. Then there would be no laws; for laws, after all, are something. If there were no laws, then everything would be permitted. If everything were permitted, then nothing would be forbidden. So if there were nothing, nothing would be forbidden. Thus nothing is self-forbidding. Therefore, there must be something. QED.”

Jim Holt Quote: “In his 1996 book, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, Peter L. Bernstein wrote, “Regression to the mean motivates almost every variety of risk-taking and forecasting. It is at the root of homilies like ‘What goes up must come down,’ ‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ and ‘From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”

3. “In his 1996 book, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, Peter L. Bernstein wrote, “Regression to the mean motivates almost every variety of risk-taking and forecasting. It is at the root of homilies like ‘What goes up must come down,’ ‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ and ‘From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”

Jim Holt Quote: “It has even been conjectured that the human mind plays a critical role in the self-causing mechanism. Although we seem to be a negligible part of the cosmos, it is our consciousness that gives reality to it as a whole. On this picture, sometimes called the “participatory universe,” reality is a self-sustaining causal loop: the world creates us, and we in turn create the world.”

4. “It has even been conjectured that the human mind plays a critical role in the self-causing mechanism. Although we seem to be a negligible part of the cosmos, it is our consciousness that gives reality to it as a whole. On this picture, sometimes called the “participatory universe,” reality is a self-sustaining causal loop: the world creates us, and we in turn create the world.”

Jim Holt Quote: “For, as the German diplomat and philosopher Max Scheler wrote, “He who has not, as it were, looked into the abyss of the absolute Nothing will completely overlook the eminently positive content of the realization that there is something rather than nothing.” Let us, then, dip briefly into that abyss, with full assurance that we will not come up empty-handed. For, as the old saying goes: Nothing seek, nothing find.”

5. “For, as the German diplomat and philosopher Max Scheler wrote, “He who has not, as it were, looked into the abyss of the absolute Nothing will completely overlook the eminently positive content of the realization that there is something rather than nothing.” Let us, then, dip briefly into that abyss, with full assurance that we will not come up empty-handed. For, as the old saying goes: Nothing seek, nothing find.”

Jim Holt Quote: “The total absence of humor from the Bible,” Alfred North Whitehead once observed, “is one of the most singular things in all literature.”

6. “The total absence of humor from the Bible,” Alfred North Whitehead once observed, “is one of the most singular things in all literature.”

Jim Holt Quote: “As the physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed has put it, “The earth is not the center of the solar system, the sun is not the center of our galaxy, our galaxy is just one of billions in a universe that has no center, and now our entire three-dimensional universe would be just a thin membrane in the full space of dimensions. If we consider slices across the extra dimensions, our universe would occupy a single infinitesimal point in each slice, surrounded by a void.”

7. “As the physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed has put it, “The earth is not the center of the solar system, the sun is not the center of our galaxy, our galaxy is just one of billions in a universe that has no center, and now our entire three-dimensional universe would be just a thin membrane in the full space of dimensions. If we consider slices across the extra dimensions, our universe would occupy a single infinitesimal point in each slice, surrounded by a void.”

Jim Holt Quote: “The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”

8. “The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”

Jim Holt Quote: “In his version of the theory, information becomes conscious when certain “workspace” neurons broadcast it to many areas of the brain at once, making it simultaneously available for, say, language, memory, perceptual categorization, action planning, and so on. In other words, consciousness is “cerebral celebrity,” as the philosopher Daniel Dennett has described it, or “fame in the brain.”

9. “In his version of the theory, information becomes conscious when certain “workspace” neurons broadcast it to many areas of the brain at once, making it simultaneously available for, say, language, memory, perceptual categorization, action planning, and so on. In other words, consciousness is “cerebral celebrity,” as the philosopher Daniel Dennett has described it, or “fame in the brain.”

Jim Holt Quote: “If by ‘God’ you have something definite in mind – a being that is loving, or jealous, or whatever – then you’re faced with the question of why God’s that way and not another way. And if you don’t have anything very definite in mind when you talk about ‘God’ being behind the existence of the universe, then why even use the word? So I think religion doesn’t help. It’s part of the human tragedy: we’re faced with a mystery we can’t understand – Steven Weinberg.”

10. “If by ‘God’ you have something definite in mind – a being that is loving, or jealous, or whatever – then you’re faced with the question of why God’s that way and not another way. And if you don’t have anything very definite in mind when you talk about ‘God’ being behind the existence of the universe, then why even use the word? So I think religion doesn’t help. It’s part of the human tragedy: we’re faced with a mystery we can’t understand – Steven Weinberg.”

Jim Holt Quote: “From a philosophical perspective, Linde’s little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force behind our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation.”

11. “From a philosophical perspective, Linde’s little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force behind our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation.”

Jim Holt Quote: “Instead of being an inert object, nothingness would appear to be a dynamic thing, a sort of annihilating force.”

12. “Instead of being an inert object, nothingness would appear to be a dynamic thing, a sort of annihilating force.”

Jim Holt Quote: “Bertrand Russell recounts in his autobiography that as an unhappy adolescent he frequently contemplated suicide. But he did not go through with it, he tells us, “because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

13. “Bertrand Russell recounts in his autobiography that as an unhappy adolescent he frequently contemplated suicide. But he did not go through with it, he tells us, “because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

Jim Holt Quote: “I find it hard to swallow the notion that the world is improved by extra suffering. And that goes for a lot of Christian doctrine. Jones commits a crime, so you expiate the evil by nailing Smith to a cross and it’s all better. – John Leslie.”

14. “I find it hard to swallow the notion that the world is improved by extra suffering. And that goes for a lot of Christian doctrine. Jones commits a crime, so you expiate the evil by nailing Smith to a cross and it’s all better. – John Leslie.”

Jim Holt Quote: “It was in the early Renaissance that the art of the joke was reborn, and the midwife was a man called Poggio.”

15. “It was in the early Renaissance that the art of the joke was reborn, and the midwife was a man called Poggio.”

Jim Holt Quote: “Dehaene marveled at the fact that mathematics is simultaneously a product of the human mind and a powerful instrument for discovering the laws by which the human mind operates.”

16. “Dehaene marveled at the fact that mathematics is simultaneously a product of the human mind and a powerful instrument for discovering the laws by which the human mind operates.”

Jim Holt Quote: “Does mathematics carry its own ontological clout?”

17. “Does mathematics carry its own ontological clout?”

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 15 free pictures with Jim Holt Quotes.

All of the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.