Richard Feynman is Nobel prize winning physicist and famous communicator. I put together a collection of YouTube Feynman videos:
Transcript:
I have approximate answers and possible beliefs about different things, but I’m not too sure of anything. The many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here and what the question might mean, I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, I go into something out. I don’t have to know an answer, and I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things. Being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly, it doesn’t frighten.
I have a friend who’s an artist, and sometimes taking a view which I don’t agree with very well. He holds up a flower and says, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree, but he says, “You see as I, as an artist, can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes a dull thing.” I think that he’s kind of nutty first of all. The beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, although I may not be as refined as he is. I can’t appreciate the beauty of the flower at the same time as I see much more about the flower than he sees. I can imagine the souls in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. It’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter; there’s also beauty at a smaller dimension. The inner structure, the processes, the fact that the colors and the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting. It means the insects can see the color, which adds a question: is this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery in the aura of a flower. It only adds to the excitement and mystery, but I don’t understand how it subtracts.