From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sun Mar 05 2000 - 22:55:26 MST
EvMick wrote,
>I'd be suprised if the 'typical" extropian wasn't atypical in relation to the
>rest the population. Not that we might be similar to each other either.
>Perhaps our only similiarity is our difference from the norm.
That reminds me of a tract I read some time ago from a colleague's tribute to
Max Planck, the founder of quantum physics:
"Many kinds of men devote themselves to the many communities of science,
and not all for the sake of science. Various indeed are the men who dwell there
and the motives that have led them there. Some take to science because it offers
them the opportunity to display their particular talents. To this class of men
science is a kind of sport in the practice of which they exult, and to which
they look for vivid experiences and the satisfaction of ambition. Another class
of men are in science to make an offering of their brain pulp in the hope of
securing a profitable return. These men are scientists only by the chance of
some circumstance which offered itself when making a choice of career. If the
attending circumstances had been different, they might have become politicians
or captains of business. Were the spirit of truth to come and drive those
belonging to these two categories from the halls of science, the halls would be
noticeably emptier, but there would still be some men left. To these latter
belongs our Planck. And that is why we love him.
"If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, science
would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing
but creepers. Those who have found favor with the spirit of truth are somewhat
odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the
hosts of the rejected.
"What has brought them to science... no single answer will cover... escape
from Eveready life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the
fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape
from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where
the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the
restful contours apparently built for eternity."
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