Truth

An observation by Stephen Jay Gould:

In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” (Evolution as Fact and Theory, pp.254–55)

I'm fond of that quote because every word counts, and because it makes clear that physicists are not after truth, but instead quantitative rules of thumb for dealing with the behaviour of the universe. The most useful such rules are those we have repeatedly tried to falsify by observation, but which have nevertheless proven reliable (either universally so, or in a well-defined set of limited circumstances). Truth we leave to the mathematicians, who are welcome to it. -- Tom Yates

Simplying Assumptions

The purpose of a system is what it does. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. -- Anthony Stafford Beer

One rule, two standards

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. -- Frank Wilhoit

Selection Bias

Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10000 honest decent kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up, business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries -- but it is a force stronger than crime -- Robert Heinlein

Then we are doing science.

The truth lies directly before us in the reality surrounding us. However, we cannot use it as it is. An unbroken description of reality would be simultaneously the truest and most useless thing in the world, and it would certainly not be science. If we want to make reality and therefore truth useful to science, we must do violence to reality. We must introduce the distinction, which does not exist in nature, between essential and inessential. In nature, everything is equally essential. By seeking out the relationships that seem essential to us, we order the material in a surveyable way at the same time. Then we are doing science. -- Jakob von Uexküll

In the end

In the end,
we will remember
not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

no moral guarantees

The correct decision, given a trolley problem, is to switch the track, then wonder for the rest of your life whether you made the right decision. Anyone who could confidently switch the track and then never think about it again is a sociopath, as is anyone who fails to switch the track and believes his decision entirely exculpates him. Trolleys and certain deaths don't reflect moral decisions in the real world. Not only do you not know precisely the consequences of your actions ahead of time, you certainly don't know the consequences of the counterfactual. [...] The universe offers no moral guarantees. We make decisions, and live with them, and never know the results of the decisions we didn't make. This is the best we're offered. -- Andreas Schou

Applied Stoicism

Stallone turned down the huge sum of money [for another actor to be Rocky] because he had "establish[ed] business relations with poverty," as the Stoic philosopher Seneca put it.  "The trick is,” Tom Rothman (CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group) says, “to be fiscally responsible so you can be creatively reckless." [As Bill Cunningham  said:] "If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid… Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty, freedom is the most expensive.” -- Billy Oppenheimer [link]