WEBVTT

00:00:09.626 --> 00:00:15.038
Einstein was openly ruled by an aesthetic scientific muse:

00:00:16.930 --> 00:00:21.260
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:25.226
It is the source of all true art and science", he said.


00:00:35.304 --> 00:00:39.178
There is mystery in the universe, beguiling mystery,

00:00:39.178 --> 00:00:44.021
but it isn't capricious, whimsical, frivolous in its changeability.

00:00:44.021 --> 00:00:46.100
The universe is an orderly place

00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:52.592
and, at a deep level, regions of it behave like other regions, times behave like other times.


00:00:53.669 --> 00:00:55.753
There is mystery but not magic,

00:00:55.753 --> 00:01:03.938
strangeness beyond the wildest imagining, but no spells or witchery, no arbitrary miracles.

00:01:03.938 --> 00:01:09.670
The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement.

00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.422
I think that the appetite for mystery

00:01:13.422 --> 00:01:18.398
the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered.

00:01:18.428 --> 00:01:22.222
It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science,

00:01:22.222 --> 00:01:27.252
and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.

00:01:27.622 --> 00:01:33.317
Perhaps it is this appetite that underlies the ratings success of the paranormalists.

00:01:33.902 --> 00:01:39.140
It's often said that people 'need' something more in their lives than just the material world.

00:01:39.140 --> 00:01:41.301
There is a gap that must be filled.

00:01:41.301 --> 00:01:43.941
People need to feel a sense of purpose.

00:01:45.556 --> 00:01:50.836
Well, not a BAD purpose would be to find out what is already here, in the material world,

00:01:50.836 --> 00:01:54.343
before concluding that you need something more.

00:01:54.343 --> 00:01:56.376
How much more do you want?

00:01:56.376 --> 00:01:57.940
Just study what is,

00:01:57.940 --> 00:02:04.265
and you'll find that it already is far more uplifting than anything you could imagine needing.

00:03:24.501 --> 00:03:26.900
You don't have to be a scientist

00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:29.220
-- you don't have to play the bunsen burner --

00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:37.520
in order to understand enough science to overtake your imagined need and fill that fancied gap.

00:03:38.938 --> 00:03:43.888
Science needs to be released from the lab into the culture.