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The Feynman Series - Beauty

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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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    Social media created by Reid Gower.
Title:
The Feynman Series - Beauty
Description:

The Feynman Series is a companion project with The Sagan Series https://www.facebook.com/thesaganseries in hopes to promote scientific education and scientific literacy in the general population.

CREDITS
MUSIC : Goldmund - Threnody - http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-malady-of-elegance/id286067899
NARRATION: Carl Sagan - The Pale Blue Dot (Audiobook) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot_(book)
Home - http://www.homethemovie.org/
BBC Planet Earth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_(TV_series)
BBC Life - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(BBC_TV_series)
BBC The Grand Rift - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Rift:_Africa's_Wild_Heart
BBC The Secret Life Of Chaos - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv1c3
Microcosmos - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117040/
NASA - http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision
Chronos - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088919/
BBC The South Pacific - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_(TV_series)
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Video Language:
English
Duration:
05:11
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