Siempre es divertido leer a Feynman. Aunque he de decir que, si tengo que recomendar un libro suyo, recomendaría su biografía. Este que reseño ahora tiene algunas cosas buenísimas, pero también repeticiones de ideas a lo largo de las distintas partes. Y también repite algunos elementos de la biografía.
En todo caso, es divertido de leer, porque Feynman era divertido. Y muchos trozos valen la pena, porque revelan por qué Feynman fue tan gran científico: porque no le daba miedo tener dudas, más bien lo consideraba un atributo necesario para ser un buen investigador; porque ponía la honestidad por encima de todo; porque cuestionaba la autoridad y la jerarquía siempre que hiciera falta; y porque lo hacía por diversión, no por lograr galardones. Feynman pudo acertar o no en sus teorías, pero eso no es lo importante. Para mí él no es una referencia por sus resultados, sino por cómo se aproximaba a la investigación. Quizá por esto me ha gustado en particular su reflexión sobre ciencia y religión, de las más sensatas que he visto. Abajo pongo las citas que más me han gustado, pero creo que la que resume todo el libro es justo la que va en el último párrafo, creo que es una buena forma de terminar la reseña, porque fiel a su espíritu inquisitivo, la conclusión del libro es justo una pregunta.
Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure - the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it - the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics - the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual - the humility of the spirit.
These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one's heart to follow an idea. So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of Western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is that not the central problem of our time?
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pxi. In them we see Feynman as he was, always playing with ideas but always serious about the things that mattered to him. The things that mattered were honesty, independence, willingness to admit ignorance. He detested hierarchy and enjoyed the friendship of people in all walks of life (Freeman Dyson's Foreword)
pxiv. Feynman always said that he did physics not for the glory or for the awards and prizes but for the fun of it, for the sheer pleasure of finding out how the world works, what makes it tick (Jeffrey Robbins, Editor's introduction)
p24. You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have anwwers which might be wrong.
p25. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesnt't frighten me.
p102. I think we should teach them [students] wonders [not knowledge] and that the purpose of knowledge is to appreciate wonders even more. And that the knowledge is just to put into correct framework the wonder that nature is.
p104. The question of doubt and uncertainty is what is necessary to begin; for if you already know the answer there is no need to gather any evidence about it.
Authority may be a hint as to what the truth is, but is not the source of information. As long as it's possible, we should disregard authority whenever the observations disagree with it.
p107. And another thing that bothers me, I might as well mention, are the things that the theologians in modern times can discuss, without feeling ashamed of themselves. There are many things that they can discuss that they need not to feel ashamed of themselves, but some of they things they go on in the conferences on religion, and the decisions that have to be made, are ridiculous in modern times.
p108. Advertising, for example, is an example of a scientifically immoral description of the products.
p111. A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false but rather how likely it is to be true or false.
p112. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt.
p144. The same thrill, the same awe and mystery, come again and again when we look at any problem deeply enough. With more knowledge comes deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still.
p186. The trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun which was bound in to convert the air into trees, and in the ash is the small remnant of the part which did not come from air, that came from the solid earth, instead.
p187. Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
p188. It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past iwth a kind of balance that takes considerable skill. Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.
p212. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool..after you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists...you should not fool the layman when you are talking as a scientist.
p251. In the end, it is possible to doubt the divinity of Christ, and yet to believe firmly that it is a good thing to do unto your neigbor as you would have him do unto you. It is possible to have both these views at the same time; and I would say that I hope you will find that my atheistic scientific colleagues often carry themselves well in society.
p252 y ss.
Religion has many aspects....First, for example, it answers questions about what things are, where they come from, what man is, what God is...Let me call this the metaphysical aspect of religion. It also tells us another thing - how to behave...It gives answers to moral questions; it gives a moral and ethical code. Let me call this the ethical aspect of religion. ..And it is necessary that religion give strength and comfort and the inspiration to follow these moral views. This is the inspirational aspect of religion. It gives inspiration not only for moral conduct - it gives inspiration for the arts and for all kinds of great thoughts and actions as well.
These three aspects of religion are interconnected, and it is generally felt, in view of this close integration of ideas, that to attack one feature of the system is to attack the whole structure.
The difficulty is this: that science occasionally conflicts with the first of the three categories.
As a mater of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion.
In my opinion, it is not possible for religion to find a set of metaphysical ideas which will be guaranteed not to get into conflicts with an ever-advancing and always-changing science which is going into an unknown.
On the other hand, I don't believe that a real conflict with science will arise in the ethical aspect, because I believe that moral questions are outside of the scientific realm [no tan claro para la bioética]
I claim that whether you want something to happen or not - what value there is in the result, and how you judge the value of the result, must lie outside of science because it is not a question that you can answer only by knowing what happens; you still have to judge what happens - in a moral way.
The source of inspiration today - for strength and comfort - in any religion is very closely knit with the metaphysical aspect. Emotional ties to the moral code begin to be severely weakened when doubt, even a small amount of doubt, is expressed as to the existence of God; so when the belief in God becomes uncertain, this particular method of obtaining inspiration fails.
I don't know the answer to this central problem - the problem of maintaining the real value of religion, as a source of strength and courage to most men, while, at the same time, not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects.
Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure - the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it - the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics - the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual - the humility of the spirit.
These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one's heart to follow an idea. So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of Western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is that not the central problem of our time?
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