🪷On Mind: On Enlightenment in Science

"This adventure of the physical sciences […] could not be observed without enlightened men seeking to follow it up in the other sciences; at each step it held out to them the model to be followed." (Nicolas de Condorcet, , "Outlines Of An Historical View Of The Progress Of The Human Mind", 1795)

"Those sciences, created almost in our own days, the object of which is man himself, the direct goal of which is the happiness of man, will enjoy a progress no less sure than that of the physical sciences; and this sweet idea - that our nephews will surpass us in wisdom as in enlightenment - is no longer an illusion." (Nicolas de Condorcet, "Outlines Of An Historical View Of The Progress Of The Human Mind", 1795)

"[...] the public is composed of the class or classes directly addressed by any work, and not of the heterogeneous mass of readers. Mathematicians do not write for the circulating library. Science is not addressed to poets. Philosophy is meant for students, not for idle readers. If the members of a class do not understand - if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognise a power in the voice - surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt? The mathematician who is without value to mathematicians, the thinker who is obscure or meaningless to thinkers, the dramatist who fails to move the pit, may be wise, may be eminent, but as an author he has failed." (George H Lewes, "The Principles of Success in Literature", 1865)

"Science is a matter of disinterested observation, patient ratiocination within some system of logically correlated concepts. In real-life conflicts between reason and passion the issue is uncertain. Passion and prejudice are always able to mobilize their forces more rapidly and press the attack with greater fury; but in the long run (and often, of course, too late) enlightened self-interest may rouse itself, launch a counterattack and win the day for reason." (Aldous L Huxley, "Literature and Science", 1963)

"Often the very fact that the words of science are the same as those of our common life and tongues can be more misleading than enlightening, more frustrating to understanding than recognizably technical jargon." (J Robert Oppenheimer, "Science and the Common Understanding", 1954)

"In sum, an enlightened understanding of both physical and social phenomena is possible through modeling, as various stages of inquiry. Just as real world models are inseparable from experiences of the empirical world, a narrative is thoroughly implicated in a social encounter. Actors resort to narratives as they respond to the movements of others and project possibilities for future encounters. An actor becomes a virtual witness to an idealized scene, drawing upon past encounters to construct a picture of future, hypothetical events." (Daniel Rothbart [Ed.], "Modeling: Gateway to the Unknown", 2004)