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How important is the role of the mysterious in your life? Do you think that science de-mystifies life? Do you think a life without mystery is duller or less interesting?

Denker 7 Feb 10
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Mystery is very important in my life. No, science does not de-mystify life—It’s just the opposite. Science opens up ever greater avenues of mystery. Every scientific finding spawns multiple mysteries of ever greater proportions.

The last question is moot. There’s no such thing as a life without mystery. There are people wearing blindfolds who choose not to look at the mysterious.

Every second of conscious awareness is a profound mystery of staggering proportions.

I just started reading about William Blake. Here's a good one from him:

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

@brentan
“Imagination itself” : what an insight! Great quote and perfect for this post. Thank you sir.

1

While in the abstract mystery can add positive intrigue to life, on balance I prefer less mystery to more mystery. I think most people are like that; we like things to be rendered comprehensible and understandable and therefore predictable and therefore generally more controllable or at least able to hedge one's risks.

I don't think there's any danger of science robbing us of mystery, because it's a really big, complex universe and we are really small, limited, simple observers / participants therein. Every time science explains one thing, it reveals a dozen others that we know nothing about. So lovers of mystery need not despair.

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Science creates ten new questions for every one question it answers. Science will never de-mystify life.

1

It depends on what you mean by mystery if you mean questions I always have lots of questions I know I'll spend the rest of my life till the day I die trying to figure out what the heck's going on and enjoying myself immensely while I do so I do not believe in the Supernatural though I think everything has a an explanation no matter how amazing that maybe

1

I've been watching YouTubes videos about quantum mechanics recently. Even if it's a scientific fact and even if we understood it completely, a sense of awe would compensate for the loss of mystery.

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A better understanding leads to more questions and more mysteries to be solved. Only the most superficial of answers would not immediately suggest other much more amazing questions.

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The mystery of science is there is much left to learn, knowing we aren't there yet but being able to predict we will get there, is completely yummy to me. We don't need to fill in the gaps with fairies and goblins.

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