"What we really mean by free will... is the visualizing of alternatives and making a choice between them. ...the central problem of human consciousness depends on this ability to imagine."
Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book, The Ascent of Man. He was widely regarded as "one of the most revered intellectuals on the global stage."
"One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable. There is no absolute knowledge and those who claim it, whether they are scientist or dogmatist, open the door to tragedy. All knowledge, all information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility."
Jacob Bronowski"The symbol of the University is the iron statue outside the Rathskeller of a barefoot goose girl that every student kisses at graduation. The University is a Mecca to which students come with something less than perfect faith. It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it."
Jacob Bronowski"The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation."
Jacob Bronowski"The ability... to experiment with imaginary situations, gives man a freedom... the pleasure in trying out and exploring imaginary situations. A childs play is concerned with this pleasure; and so is much of art, and much of science... [P]ure science... is a form of play, in this sense."
Jacob Bronowski"He first became familiar to the British public through appearances on the BBC television version of The Brains Trust in the late 1950s, but is better known for his... series The Ascent of Man (1973). This was an inspiration for Carl Sagan to make Cosmos in 1980. During the making of The Ascent of Man he was interviewed by Michael Parkinson, and Bronowskis description of a visit to Auschwitz—he had lost many family members during the Nazi era—was described by Parkinson as one of his most memorable interviews. ...Bronowski died of a heart attack in East Hampton, New York a year after The Ascent of Man was completed, and was buried in the western side of Londons ..."
Jacob Bronowski"In every age there is a turning point, a new way of seeing and asserting the coherence of the world. It is frozen in the statues of Easter Island that put a stop to time—and in the medieval clocks of Europe that once also seemed to say the last word about the heavens for ever. Each culture tries to fix its visionary moment, when it was transformed by a new conception either of nature or of man. But in retrospect, what commands our attention as much are the continuities—the thoughts that run or recur from one civilization to another."
Jacob Bronowski