Steve Stewart-Williams - Universe Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

View all Steve Stewart-Williams Quotes
Some claim that life, the universe, and mind are miraculous. My conclusion is that these things are really, really amazing, but that they're not miraculous (unless by miraculous, you just mean 'really, really amazing').

Steve Stewart-Williams
If we decide – and this is our decision; it's not imposed on us from above – if we decide that reducing the amount of suffering in the world is a good ethical principle to live by, then it becomes entirely unjustified and arbitrary to extend this principle to human beings but not also to extend it to other animals capable of suffering. Why should the suffering of nonhumans be less important than that of humans? Surely a universe with less suffering is better than one with more, regardless of whether the locus of suffering is a human being or not, a rational being or not, a member of the moral community or not. Suffering is suffering, and these other variables are morally irrelevant.

Steve Stewart-Williams
Why would the omnipotent creator of the entire universe be so deeply attached to a bipedal, tropical ape? Why would He take on the bodily form of one of these peculiar tailless primates? Why would such a magnificent being be so obsessively, nit-pickingly preoccupied with trivial matters such as the dress code and sexual behaviour of one mammalian species, especially its female members?

Steve Stewart-Williams
When you contemplate the universe, part of the universe becomes conscious of itself.

Steve Stewart-Williams
Even in a pointless universe, pointless happiness and pleasures are surely preferable to pointless suffering.

Steve Stewart-Williams
Around 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, and almost four billion years since life first evolved, something strange began to happen: Tiny parts of the universe became conscious, and came to know something about themselves and the universe of which they are a part... Eventually, some of these tiny parts of the universe - the parts we call 'scientists' and 'scientifically-informed laypeople' - came to understand the Big Bang and the evolutionary process through which they had come to exist. After an eternity of unconsciousness, the universe now had some glimmering awareness that it existed and some understanding of where it had come from.

Steve Stewart-Williams
It may be the fate of the universe to spend an eternity in darkness, save one brief flash of self-awareness in the middle of nowhere.

Steve Stewart-Williams
One could even argue that our creative endeavours and achievements and small acts of kindness are all the more impressive against the backdrop of a purposeless universe.

Steve Stewart-Williams
Evolutionary theory answers one of the most profound and fundamental questions human beings have ever asked themselves, a question that has plagued reflective minds for as long as reflective minds have existed in the universe: why are we here?

Steve Stewart-Williams