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I have a friend who is an artist, and has sometimes

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taken a view which I don't agree with very well.

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He'll hold up a flower and say "Look how beautiful it is"

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and I'll agree. And he says you see as an artist I can see how beautiful this is,

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but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing. And I think that he's kind of nutty.

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First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe, although

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I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is;

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but I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

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At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there,

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the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty.

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I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter, there's also beauty at smaller dimensions.

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The inner structure, also the processes, the fact that the colors and the flower are evolved in order

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to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting.

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It means that insects can see the color.

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It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms that... why is it aesthetic...

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all kinds of interesting questions which with science, knowledge, only adds to the excitement,

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and mystery, and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

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If you expected science to give all the answers to the wonderful questions about what we are,

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where we are going, what the meaning of the universe is, and so on, then I think you could easily become

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disillusioned and look for some mystic answer to these problems. How a scientist can take a mystic answer,

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I don't know, the whole spirit is to understand... Well, never mind that, I mean I don't understand that.

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But anyhow, if you think of it, the way I think of what we're doing is that we are exploring, we're trying to find out

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as much as we can about the world.

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People say to me "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?"

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No I'm not, I'm just looking to find out more about the world, and if it turns out there is a simple

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ultimate law that explains everything, so be it.

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That would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers,

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and we're just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then that's the way it is.

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But whatever way it comes out, nature is there and she's going to come out the way she is.

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Therefore, when we go to investigate it, we shouldn't pre-decide what it is we're trying to do

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except to find out more about it.

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You see, one thing is: I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing.

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I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

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I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty

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about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything,

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and there are many things I don't know anything about.

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But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things;

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by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is

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as far as I can tell possible. It doesn't frighten me.

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And so altogether I can't believe the special stories

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that have been made up about our relationship to the universe at large because they seem to be

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too simple, too connected...too local, too provincial. The earth, he came to the earth!

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One of the aspects of god came to the Earth, mind you.

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And look at what's out there, it isn't in proportion.

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Anyway, it's no use arguing, I can't argue it. I'm just trying

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to tell you: with the scientific view, my father's view, that we should look to see what's true and what

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may not be true; once you start doubting, which to me is a very fundamental part of my soul, is to doubt,

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and to ask; when you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe.

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Beauty

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The Feynman series is a side project of

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facebook.com/thesaganseries

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visit or subscribe directly above for more

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Credits

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