“…awareness of paradox returns to humans a great power and responsibility: the power and responsibility of actively participating in the conversation that creates their world. All of the ever-refined perspectives that emerge from science’s conversations depend on a human mind and the meaning this mind creates…
…Each choice depends on a perspective taken, and each will lead the conversation to vastly different places. Humans are central to this conversation. They are not the insignificant cogwheels of a monstrous machinery they have invented themselves to be.”
(Pg 200)
“Humans become human when absolute certainty and truth dissipate. And with the importance of human choice comes the ultimate freedom, the freedom to create one’s world out of conversations with it. Living in the paradox is the ultimate luxury. It is a place where humans are invited to make a difference – every moment until their dying breath; a place where human choices can initiate conversations that can change the world; a place where no human effort could be discussed as quixotic, futile, or crazy.”
(Pg 201)
“Living in the face of paradoxes means power, but it also means a voyage through a heaving bottomless ocean. This is not easy to accept. Our inquiries are driven by the desire for final answers, but the paradox stands forever in the way of final answers, making any human inquiry as unending as the creation it is a part of. In contrast to Sysiphus, however, who pushes a giant boulder up a mountain only to see it tumble down in an endless cycle of tedious toil, human conversations never return to the same place. They continually create new realms of inquiry and wonder.
The role of humans in making the world through their conversations is adventurous and thrilling. This role makes any human endeavour, including science, a most elaborate, colourful, and fantastic drama. It is a drama with an open ending for the paradox makes the world a possibility, not a certainty. In this drama you are not a replaceable stagehand. You are the star of the play. And you are invited to take a role, to become a minute part of the grand conversation. It is the only thing to do, if you choose to do anything at all. To see this possibility, of course, requires a choice. Nobody can take this choice away from you, but neither can anybody make this choice for you. It is the choice behind all choices… it is the choice to choose.”
(Pg 203)
Some Words Left Behind 