Alexander

“What is dangerous is not making mistakes, but to be so enamored of one’s point of view that one does not let facts get in the way. To make progress, we have to constantly go back to the facts, acknowledge our errors, and move”
― Abhijit V. Banerjee, Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

“One can speculate that the tardiness and wobbliness of humanity's progress on many of the "eternal problems" of philosophy are due to the unsuitability of the human cortex for philosophical work. On this view, our most celebrated philosophers are like dogs walking on their hind legs - just barely attaining the treshold level of performance required for engaging in the activity at all.”
― Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

“Reality is a powerful selection pressure. A hominid that soothed itself by believing that a lion was a turtle or that eating sand would nourish its body would be outreproduced by its reality-based rivals.”
― Steven Pinker, Rationality

“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.”
― Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons