An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored box format)

"The Meaning of it All " by Richard Feynman (Chap. 1, The Uncertainty of Science. pp. 1 - 28)

• "I do know about science. I know its ideas and its methods, its attitudes toward knowledge, the sources of its progress, its mental discipline." [p. 4]
• Science usually means one of three things:
  • a special method of finding things out
  • the body of knowledge arising from the things found out
  • the new things you can do when you have found something out (i.e. technology)
• "Now this power to do things with it carries no instructions on how to use it, whether to use it for good or for evil." [p. 5]
• "Is science of any value? I think the power to do something is of value." [p. 6]
• "When the scientist is told that he must be more responsible for his effects on society, it is the applications of science that are referred to. ... I think that to say that these are scientific problems is an exaggeration. They are far more humanitarian problems." [p. 7]
• "The next aspect of science is its contents, the things that have been found out. This is the yield. This is the gold. This is the excitement, the pay you get for all the disciplined thinking and hard work. ... this is a tremendous adventure and a wild and exciting thing." [p. 9]
• "The universe has been described by many, but it just goes on ... just as mysterious, just as awe-inspiring, and just as incomplete as the poetic pictures that came before. ... Have you read anywhere, by any poet, anything abut time that compares with real time, with the long, slow process of evolution?" [p. 10]
• "Can you conceive, can you appreciate or fit into your ideas what can be the meaning of a world without a living thing on it? ... yet most of the time the world had nothing alive on it. And in most places in the universe today there probably is nothing alive. Or life itself. The internal machinery of life, the chemistry of the parts, is something beautiful." [p. 11]
• "or there are the atoms. ... Things that look quiet and still, like a glass of water with a covered top that has been sitting for several days, are active all the time; the atoms are leaving the surface, bouncing around inside, and coming back. What looks still to our crude eyes is a wild and dynamic dance." [p. 12]
• "Trying to understand the way nature works involves a most terrible test of human reasoning ability." [p. 15]
• "The third aspect of my subject is that science is a method of finding things out. ... observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea." [p. 15]
• "The principle that observation is the judge imposes a severe limitation to the kind of questions that can be answered. ... But if a thing is not scientific, if it cannot be subjected to the test of observation, this does not mean that it is dead, or wrong, or stupid. ... But there are some things left out, for which the method does not work. This does not mean that those things are unimportant. They are, in fact, in many ways the most important." [p 16-17]
• "I think that extreme precision of definition is often not worthwhile, and sometimes it is not possible - in fact mostly it is not possible." [p. 21]
• "Where does the idea come from? ... Actually, it does not make any difference, as long as they come." [p. 21]
• "The rules that describe nature seem to be mathematical. ... Why nature is mathematical is, again, a mystery." [p. 24]
• "All scientific knowledge is uncertain. This experience with doubt and uncertainty is important. I believe that it is of very great value, and one that extends beyond the sciences. I believe that to solve any problem that has never been solved before, you have to leave the door to the unknown ajar. You have to permit the possibility that you do not have it exactly right." [p. 26 - 27]
• "If we were not able or did not desire to look in any new direction, if we did not have a doubt or recognize ignorance, we would not get any new ideas. ... Some people say, 'How can you live without knowing?' I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. It is easy." [p. 27-28]
• "If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. ... Doubt is clearly a value in the sciences. ... doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of very great value." [p. 28]

The selected quotes (previously yellow highlighted) capture the important ideas.

I wonder if there is a video of these lectures? No, I wasn't able to find anything on Google.

"The Meaning of it All " by Richard Feynman (Chap. 2, The Uncertainty of Values. pp. 31 - 57)

• "What is communicated can be lies as well as truth, propoganda as well as real and valuable information." [p. 31]
• ... the great accumulation of understanding as to how the physical world behaves only convinces one that this behavior has a kind of meaninglessness about it. The sciences do not directly teach good and bad." [p. 32]
• "looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their won beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true." [p. 33-34]
• "No discussion can be made of moral values, of the meaning of life and so on, without coming to the great source of systems of morality and descriptions of meaning, which is in the field of religion. And so I don't feel that I could give three lectures on the subject of the impact of scientific ideas on other ideas without frankly and completely discussing the relation of science and religion." [p. 34]
• "I also agree that a belief in science and religion is consistent. I know many scientists who believe in God." [p. 36]
• "It is consistent, but it is difficult. There are two sources of difficulty:
  • The first is that he learns to doubt, that it is necessary to doubt, that it is valuable to doubt.
  • ... the second is that these scientific views appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate." [p. 38-39]
• "It is difficult to take two different points of view that come from different directions." [p. 40]
• "Science makes an impact on many ideas associated with religion, but I do not believe it affects in any very strong way, the moral conduct and ethical views." [p. 41]
• "Religion has many aspects:
  • the metaphysical aspect - it tells what things are and where they came from
  • the ethical aspect - it says how to behave
  • the inspirational aspect [p. 41-42]
• "Four reasons to think that moral values lie outside the scientific realm:
  • We have changed metaphysical positions (e.g. Copernicus, Darwin) with no effect on the ethical position
  • There are good men who practice Christian ethics and don't believe in God
  • There is no scientific evidence to support the idea that the Golden Rule is a good one
  • There is no ultimate judgement of what is good or bad' [p. 42-43]
• "Russia is backward because it has not learned that there is a limit to government power." [p. 50]
• "We are here only at the very beginning of time for the human race. ... There are all kinds of opportunities, and there are all kinds of dangers. Man has been stopped before by stopping his ideas. ... I hope for freedom for future generations - freedom to doubt, to develop, to continue the adventure of finding out new ways of soing things, of solving problems. ... We are only in the beginning. We have plenty of time to solve the problems. ... We are not so smart. We are dumb. We are ignorant. We must maintain an open channel. I believe in limited government." [p. 56-57]

I appreciate that Feynman took the effort to talk about the relationship betwen science and religion.

"The Meaning of it All " by Richard Feynman (Chap. 3, This Unscientific Age. pp. 61 - 122)

• "I have completely run out of organized ideas, but I have a large number of uncomfortable feelings about the world which I haven't been able to put into some obvious, logical, and sensible form." [p. 61]
• "That something is unscientific is not bad." [p. 63]
• "In life, in gaity, in emotion, in human pleasures and pursuits, and in literature and so on, there is no need to be scientific. One must relax and enjoy life." [p. 64]
• "Some of the little tricks of the trade in trying to judge an idea:
  • Does the person know what he is talking about? (can they respond to intelligent questions?)
  • How do they deal with uncertainty? (by exploring alternatives, or not?)
  • If something is really true, then if you continue observations the effect should stand out more obviously, not less obviously.
  • a real effect should have a certain kind of permanence or constancy of some kind
  • the problem is not what is possible. The problem is what is probable.
  • there is no sense in calculating the probability or the chance that something happens after it happens. "Because it doesn't make any sense to calculate after the event. You see, you found the peculiarity, and so you selected the particular case. ... If he wants to test his hypothesis, he cannot do it from the same data that gave him the clue. He must do another experiment all over again." [p. 80-81]
  • Many people believe things from anecdotes in which there is only one case instead of a large number of cases. [p. 82]
  • This business of statistics is well known, and the problem of getting a good sample is a very serious one, and everybody knows about it, and it's a scientifically OK business. Except if you don't do it. [p. 85]
  • There is a tendency, then, to use only what can be measured as a criterion. ... But it's easier to have more examinations and not have to waste the time with the interviews, and the result is that only those things which can be measured, actually what they think they can measure, are what count, and a lot of good things are left out, a lot of good guys are missed. [p. 90]

I must remind myself to read this book again in a year's time!

Science Index