Dbergan/WagerScratchpaper

==Scene Outlines== Go to User:Dbergan/WagerSceneOutlines ==Title Options== *''Darrow�s Wager'' (billionaire named Darrow) *''Pascal�s Wager'' (billionaire named Pascal) *''The Wager'' *''Darwin�s Wager'' *''Wager'' ==Outline== ====I. Billionaire is so convinced of the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution that he puts up $1 billion to be given to any scientist who can prove natural selection.==== :How shall we phrase the wager? Asking a scientist to prove a positive statement seems to break scientific rules. Scientists can offer their best theories and cite lots of empirical evidence to back them, but they are always one expirical example away from a disproof of those theories. Scientists can disprove anything, but they can definitively prove nothing... right? -C ::Proof and disproof is murky philosophy of science stuff. (And well over the heads of most movie-goers.) Couldn't we say that the atomic clocks on the 747s experiment "proved" relativity? Or disproved Newtonian laws of motion? In the same sense, the billionaire is asking for the disproof of evolution... which is the proof of ID. ::I was thinking that since the billionaire would want to give the appearance of being reasonable, he would give the Darwinists something like 10 ways to win the money. (1) Demonstrate how to get a functional one-celled organism from merely organic compounds and naturalistic methods. (2) Demonstrate how to get a two-celled organism from a population of one-celled organisms and naturalistic methods. (3) Demonstrate how to get flagellum on a bacteria. Etc. The "Mentor" would pick out the one of the 10 that would be the easiest to prove and organize his research dormitory to get just that one. -D ====II. Plot twist: Intelligent life is found to exist on another planet... raising the hopes of scientists that since this happened twice it proves that evolution is a viable theory.==== :Something to think about: how do we discover this life? Is there mere existence of another biosphere enough to excite the biologists and put the billionaire's bank account in peril, or do we have to get more detailed information about the development of life on that other planet before any evolutionist can justify a claim to the billion dollars? -C ::I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. We could go with the standard SETI finds a signal approach, but I think it would be more fun if the ETs somehow contacted Earth in a way that we weren't expecting. And also we could put in a scene at SETI headquarters (pre-invasion) where a dialog is sparked, "But if there is something intelligent sending the signal, how do you know what it would be like? Isn't intelligence by definition unpredictable? The reason I can predict the tides and the reason I cannot predict Bobby Fisher's next chess move is because Bobby is intelligent, while the tides are not. How do you study something like that?" Response: "You are right that we never know how intelligence is going to act, and we also cannot predict what the radio signal from an intelligent being would be like... but we know what unintelligent radio signals are like. They are static. An intelligent signal would simply be something different from what raw nature can produce. -D ====III. However, after we learn to correspond with the extra-terrestrials, we find out that they know for a fact, scientifically, that we were created...==== ====IV. Controversy with the E.T.s results in hostility. They know that we were created, yet scientists are unwilling to accept it.==== :*~~They say that they have personally spoken with God and He revealed the history of Earth�s creation to them~~ :*They reveal that they created life on Earth. (Proven by showing that they have a zoo of extinct Earth animals. (dinos, etc)) :*They know that God created them. How? Good question. ====V. Darwinian stubbornness persists despite everything they revealed.==== ====VI. The E.T.s lift off and leave Earth never to be seen again.==== :Their leaving should have some impact, something more than, "Gee, they seemed like nice aliens. It would have been nice to chat with them some more." What could be at stake? Do we simply feel crushed at abandonment by our progenitors? Do the aliens offer knowledge that could have improved our condition, only to rescind the offer when offended by our narrow-mindedness? -C ::Question: How many people would know about the ETs? Maybe the rendezvous would be secret. Maybe they contact the "mentor" personally and then beam him up with the main character... so that no one besides these two people know anything about the ETs. -D ====VII. Main character reflects on the events and is torn by the reasonable arguments of both sides. He is left in the baffling wake of the ET's departure and ends throwing up his hands to science and all attempts to come to rational conclusions. The movie ends with some comments about Pascal�s Wager.==== ===Other plot ideas not yet in the outline=== I think there also needs to be some kind of personal subplot... Main character is a Darwinist, but has a bright friend he respects (who perhaps betrayed evolution as a result of the wager?) on the ID side. We'll make the friend a Buddhist or simply agnostic to show that this is not Genesis creationism. Their dialog can bring out some of the misunderstandings of ID. :Key misunderstandings to address in the script: :*Identity of Designer... "ID doesn't say anything about the identity, motive, skill, purpose, or intent of the designer. No more than physics tell us who the banger was behind the big bang. All we know is that this laptop was designed by something intelligent. We're not sure if we can trust the sticker saying that AMD made the processor. That could be a forgery. But we know that even forgeries are intelligently designed. A counterfeiter is often the most intelligent men in his prison." :*Two ways of knowing design... historical method (pictures of guys making the laptop) or by analysis of physical properties of the object :*Appeal to ignorance... Recognizing that X is designed based on its properties is logically valid. :*Repeatability/Falsification/Definition of science... "ID is like a forensic science. We're not expecting to see another pyramid to pop up out of the sand to determine that the ones we have were designed. We are looking at the physical properties of the object we have." :*Optimal design... "Just because some parts of X might be sub-optimal doesn't mean that X wasn't designed. A Pinto is designed even if it isn't as good a car as a Corvette." :*Genesis creationism... "We can't say how X was designed based on its properties, that's not ID. But all the other scientific evidence shows that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is another 15 billion years old. Dinosaurs appear to have lived and died 200 million years ago, and DNA evidence shows that all life seems to have descended from one common ancestor." The main character's mentor sets up a dormitory to research specifically the items laid out in the wager. As thus he might be the target of fundamentalist shenanigans... Or the ID friend might be the target of shenanigans since he betrayed the establishment... ==Characters== *Main character/narrator - A bright and reflective biology grad student. ~~(A journalist who writes on science stuff like Shannon Bagley?)~~ He obviously leans toward Darwinism, but because he is a reasonable man, he is willing to change his mind to conform to reason if Darwinism turns out to be inadequate. *Billionaire - An arrogant older man whose day is done in the corporate world. Reflecting on his life he has a Clinton-like regret for not tending to his legacy more than he has... he realizes that he's only known and respected by other business men. Thus even though he is convinced that Darwinism is false, he makes the wager perhaps for a quest of personal immortality, rather than to flush out the truth. (Finding his true personal motive—truth or immortality—could be a good question to tantalize with dialogue and leave ambigious at the end of the movie.) He's sharp/shrewd, but not amazingly brilliant. Not a Christian, either... too corrupted by money. His spiritual status is left ambiguous, because all we see is a "what's the bottom line" mentality that doesn't care about anything except for real (ie ''material'') things. Actually doesn't have a billion dollars, even though he bets it. *Mentor - Brilliant, scintillating, with the full, fast, charisma of a monomaniac. Dedicated to Darwinism at all costs and will rationalize/rhetoricalize his way out of any corner. Always has his full wit at his disposal... never shows a moment's hesitation when arguing against the opposition, never a half-second of doubt, and absolutely unwilling to conceed any ground of reasonableness to the other side. (ala Richard Dawkins) However, while being inside the spaceship (and seeing the evidence that all of Earth's life was planted by the ETs) he is totally silent. The look on his face shows that the facts overwhelm him... he even blushes. Silence as he and his grad student come down from the ship and get into his car to return to the office. Then in the car, the student asks him, "I guess this means Darwin was wrong, doesn't it?" He stays silent for five more seconds and you can see anger overtake his face. Then his old rhetoric comes back to him, as if he were snapping back to reality. His doubts are forced out of his mind and he resumes his uninterrupted antagonism to ID. The next time the ETs talk to him he is the same string of arguments that he was the first time they talked to him. He persists that he cannot accept their evidence. He does not have any way of trusting them and thus does not know that they brought the living things here. He cannot verify this with the scientific method, thus nobody can fault him for failing to believe. He has to be intellectually honest and true to himself and his work. The ETs leave as a result of this huff, and as far as we know the mentor never thinks about the episode again. *Friend on the ID side Question: ''Why is this student narrating the story?'' :His mentor is really prestigious... so much that when the ETs choose someone to go onboard, they choose the mentor and bring the main character along (his brightest student). So this is one of two people who see the whole story... the mentor is so steeped in Darwinism, that he prefers not to breathe a word of what was inside the ET's spaceship. (The mentor is also the guy who the ETs leave in the dust because he is unwilling to believe them.) ===Actors=== *Billionaire - Christopher Walken *Grad Student - Edward Norton, Elijah Wood *Mentor - Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen (although I wouldn't want to have more than 1 LOTR actor - if Wood, then not McKellen) Need an actor with more ''fast-talking'' charisma like Cicero would have had. Patrick Stewart? Kevin Kline? Peter O'Toole? Dustin Hoffman? Kelsey Grammar? ==Conflict== There is some conflict inherent in the ID/Darwin struggle, and some man Vs. himself in the grad student who cannot decide how to lead his life. But more conflict needs to be introduced to keep things exciting/tense throughout the movie. ==Specific Scene Ideas== ===Opening montage=== *Scrabble letters: random Vs. spells word *Cards dealt (camera looking from underneath through a glass table): random Vs. Ace down to 2 in spades *Sandcastle on a beach (record waves disintegrating it and play in reverse?) *Sequence of numbers with a blank: 3, 9, 27, ____, 243 *Coded message: EBSXJO JT EFBE (�Darwin is dead.�) Show person decoding with a pen E & B to D & A. *Pile of coins � all heads *Table full of dice � all 1�s (or how about a swimming pool full of dice?) ===Intro narration=== (While watching a scene of a Darwin/design debate� possibly a shouting match between two college students [one wearing a Jesus fish t-shirt, and one wearing a Darwin fish t-shirt] �Intelligent design is too science!� �Is not!� �Is too!�): "I didn�t agree with anything they [design theorists] said, but there isn�t any reason to shut them up. It�s all hogwash and bound to fizzle out on its own..." "Then one day things got really interesting..." [cut to the billionaire�s press release of his wager.] ===In press conference=== Reporter, to billionaire: �A billion dollars! That�s a ton of money, aren�t you concerned about losing it?� Billionaire�s reply: �Not one bit. The idea that the diversity of all life evolved by natural means alone is a false theory of science. It was an interesting novelty in its day, but we know now that it says nothing substantial about life�s origins. It�s useless. It�s done. Science will move on. *pause* I�ll put up a second billion dollars to the scientist who proves to me that the Earth is flat.� ==Miscellaneous== What are the plot devices used in ''Inherit the Wind'' and ''Contact'' that keep the story moving along and interesting even though most of the real content is at the end? -D :I can't speak authoritatively on ''Contact'' (read it years ago, haven't seen the film). ''Inherit the Wind'' makes use of various personal stories: romance between the biology teacher and the reverend's daughter, tension between reverend and daughter, acknowledgement of former friendship and continuing respect between Drummond and Brady (Darrow and Bryan), questions about the motives of Brady. -C Why is it called ''Inherit the Wind''? -D :''Inherit the Wind'' references Proverbs 11:29: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind." In the play, the local reverend holds a revival/prayer meeting the night after the first day of the trial. Swept up in his fundamentalist piety, the reverend calls down a curse on biology teacher Bertram Cates, the "sinner in our midst". When his daughter Rachel, who loves Bertram, speaks up in Bertram's defense, asking her father not to "pray to destroy Bert," the reverend cries out, "Lord, we call down the same curse on those who ask grace for this sinner -- though they be blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh!" Brady then interrupts, attempting to defuse the clearly volatile (and not very good for public image) situation, quotes Proverbs, and dismisses the congregants. -C ===Marketing=== Will we have more freedom to pursue less traditional sci-fi routes if we market this film to the Sci-Fi Channel instead of to the Hollywood studios? You obviously want a more thoughtful movie; the main sstudios seem unlikely to bankroll such a project. Unless we go for more space battles, we shold perhaps aim our project at an outfit like Lions Gate Films or another independent producer. (Pending, of course, our creation of an actual script to market.) -C :I'm aiming for Hollywood. The movie shouldn't be much different in content from ''Contact''. If they want more action, we give them more action. A good story has excitement and drama more than just a Vonnegut-esque philosophical conflict. Shakespeare knew the value of adding swordfights and drama right alongside his profound metaphysical question: "To be or not to be?" ''The Truman Show'' was also a good metaphysical thriller without much (if any) action. :Also, I'm hoping that if we pull this off, there would be enough recognition to secure future screenwriting contracts. Having something published by Hollywood would do more for our future than something that gets played after midnight on the Sci-fi channel. :Hollywood publishes enough junk and artsy movies that they should seriously consider a well-written novel script. And if we have to use our trump card we can sell them on the fact that everyone is eager to see a movie about the hottest political topic. -D ==Pascal Quotes== These all won't be used in the script. Just copying and pasting everything that catches my eye. [http://www.ccel.org/p/pascal/pensees/pensees01.htm] ===Thought 72 (the ideas herein are the ones that led me to the Pascal connection in the first place, most of the intellectual basis for the wager)=== 72. Man's disproportion.--This is where our innate knowledge leads us. If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be true, he finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled to abase himself in one way or another. And since he cannot exist without this knowledge, I wish that, before entering on deeper researches into nature, he would consider her both seriously and at leisure, that he would reflect upon himself also, and knowing what proportion there is... Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond an imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God that imagination loses itself in that thought. Returning to himself, let man consider what he is in comparison with all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this remote corner of nature; and from the little cell in which he finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him estimate at their true value the earth, kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is a man in the Infinite? But to show him another prodigy equally astonishing, let him examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite be given him, with its minute body and parts incomparably more minute, limbs with their joints, veins in the limbs, blood in the veins, humours in the blood, drops in the humours, vapours in the drops. Dividing these last things again, let him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the last object at which he can arrive be now that of our discourse. Perhaps he will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I will let him see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature's immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible world; in each earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he will find again all that the first had, finding still in these others the same thing without end and without cessation. Let him lose himself in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness. For who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which a little while ago was imperceptible in the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself sustained in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with presumption. For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up. What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards the Infinite. Who will follow these marvellous processes? The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so. '''Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have rashly rushed into the examination of nature, as though they bore some proportion to her. It is strange that they have wished to understand the beginnings of things, and thence to arrive at the knowledge of the whole, ''with a presumption as infinite as their object.''''' For surely this design cannot be formed without presumption or without a capacity infinite like nature. If we are well informed, we understand that, as nature has graven her image and that of her Author on all things, they almost all partake of her double infinity. Thus we see that all the sciences are infinite in the extent of their researches. For who doubts that geometry, for instance, has an infinite infinity of problems to solve? They are also infinite in the multitude and fineness of their premises; for it is clear that those which are put forward as ultimate are not self-supporting, but are based on others which, again having others for their support, do not permit of finality. But we represent some as ultimate for reason, in the same way as in regard to material objects we call that an indivisible point beyond which our senses can no longer perceive anything, although by its nature it is infinitely divisible. Of these two Infinites of science, that of greatness is the most palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all things. "I will speak of the whole," said Democritus. But the infinitely little is the least obvious. Philosophers have much oftener claimed to have reached it, and it is here they have all stumbled. This has given rise to such common titles as First Principles, Principles of Philosophy, and the like, as ostentatious in fact, though not in appearance, as that one which blinds us, ''De omni scibili''. (Title given by Pico della Mirandola to one of his proposed nine hundred theses, in 1486.) We naturally believe ourselves far more capable of reaching the centre of things than of embracing their circumference. The visible extent of the world visibly exceeds us; but as we exceed little things, we think ourselves more capable of knowing them. And yet we need no less capacity for attaining the Nothing than the All. Infinite capacity is required for both, and it seems to me that whoever shall have understood the ultimate principles of being might also attain to the knowledge of the Infinite. The one depends on the other, and one leads to the other. These extremes meet and reunite by force of distance and find each other in God, and in God alone. Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature. Limited as we are in every way, this state which holds the mean between two extremes is present in all our impotence. Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tend to obscurity; too much truth is paralysing (I know some who cannot understand that to take four from nothing leaves nothing). First principles are too self-evident for us; too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts. ''Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur.'' (Tacitus, Annals, iv. "Kindnesses are agreeable so long as one thinks them possible to render; further, recognition makes way for hatred.") We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold. Excessive qualities are prejudicial to us and not perceptible by the senses; we do not feel but suffer them. Extreme youth and extreme age hinder the mind, as also too much and too little education. In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses. Let us, therefore, not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix the finite between the two Infinites, which both enclose and fly from it. If this be well understood, I think that we shall remain at rest, each in the state wherein nature has placed him. As this sphere which has fallen to us as our lot is always distant from either extreme, what matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he but gets a little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer? In comparison with these Infinites, all finites are equal, and I see no reason for fixing our imagination on one more than on another. The only comparison which we make of ourselves to the finite is painful to us. If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears some proportion. But the parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another that I believe it impossible to know one without the other and without the whole. Man, for instance, is related to all he knows. He needs a place wherein to abide, time through which to live, motion in order to live, elements to compose him, warmth and food to nourish him, air to breathe. He sees light; he feels bodies; in short, he is in a dependent alliance with everything. To know man, then, it is necessary to know how it happens that he needs air to live, and, to know the air, we must know how it is thus related to the life of man, etc. Flame cannot exist without air; therefore, to understand the one, we must understand the other. Since everything, then, is cause and effect, dependent and supporting, mediate and immediate, and all is held together by a natural though imperceptible chain which binds together things most distant and most different, I hold it equally impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole and to know the whole without knowing the parts in detail. The eternity of things in itself or in God must also astonish our brief duration. The fixed and constant immobility of nature, in comparison with the continual change which goes on within us, must have the same effect. And what completes our incapability of knowing things is the fact that they are simple and that we are composed of two opposite natures, different in kind, soul and body. For it is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself. So, if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all; and if we are composed of mind and matter, we cannot know perfectly things which are simple, whether spiritual or corporeal. Hence it comes that almost all philosophers have confused ideas of things, and speak of material things in spiritual terms, and of spiritual things in material terms. For they say boldly that bodies have a tendency to fall, that they seek after their centre, that they fly from destruction, that they fear the void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all of which attributes pertain only to mind. And in speaking of minds, they consider them as in a place, and attribute to them movement from one place to another; and these are qualities which belong only to bodies. :''The bolded part in the above paragraph seems silly to us in our current understanding of physics... but listening to scientists talk about evolution we hear the exact same things... as if organic compounds for some reason prefer survival over death where there is no discussion over the spiritual assumption being made. -D Instead of receiving the ideas of these things in their purity, we colour them with our own qualities, and stamp with our composite being all the simple things which we contemplate. Who would not think, seeing us compose all things of mind and body, but that this mixture would be quite intelligible to us? Yet it is the very thing we least understand. Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being. ''Modus quo corporibus adhaerent spiritus comprehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est.'' (St. Augustine, City of God, xxi. 10. "The manner in which the spirit is united to the body can not be understood by man; and yet it is man.") Finally, to complete the proof of our weakness, I shall conclude with these two considerations...'' ===Man is but a reed=== 344. Instinct and reason, marks of two natures. 345. Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools. 346. Thought constitutes the greatness of man. 347. Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality. 348. A thinking reed.--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ===Other Quotes (pending further organization)=== God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all... 7. The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men. 9. When we wish to correct with advantage and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true. 10. People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. 11. All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which immediately forms a desire to produce the same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the same time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot hurt their purity to love with a love which seems to them so reasonable. 18. When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose. 41. Epigrams of Martial.--Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud. People are mistaken in thinking otherwise. 44. Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak. 66. One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better. 67. The vanity of the sciences.--Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences. 70. Nature... --Nature has set us so well in the centre, that if we change one side of the balance, we change the other also. This makes me believe that the springs in our brain are so adjusted that he who touches one touches also its contrary.

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D

DA | DB | DC | DE | DF | DG | DH | DI | DJ | DK | DL | DM | DN | DO | DP | DR | DS | DT | DU | DW | DX | DY | DZ |

Words begining with Dbergan/WagerScratchpaper:

Dbergan/WagerScratchpaper