There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness
Carlo Rovelli
Translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell
Having read it
★★★★☆
An interesting read with some chapters (of which all are short) that I though were really good, especially at capturing the blurred lines between life, philosophy and science, but some not so good. So, for me, not quite one of Rovelli’s best, despite its great title and good writing!
Those who feel weak are afraid, wary of others, they defend themselves and cluster in their supposed identity. Those who are strong are not afraid, do not seek conflict but collaborate instead, and contribute to building a better world, for themselves and others. If someone tells you that you should be afraid, it is because they are weak.
A good passage
Historical movements are made by ideas, ethical judgements, passions, ways of seeing the world. They often lead to a dead end. Sometimes, however, they leave behind traces that continue to work deeply upon the mental fabric of civilization, changing it irreversibly. Revolution is an old mole that burrows deep into the soil of history. On occasion, it pops its head out. It is the fantasy of those who rule that nothing will change. But then, the old mole appears when least expected. Our civilization, the set of values in which we believe, is the result of countless ideals, of the vision of those who have dared to look and to dream, intensely, beyond the present.
A second good passage
There is a profound lesson to be learned from [Bruno] de Finetti’s ideas, one that I believe relates to us all – to our daily and our spiritual lives, and to our lives as citizens: we cannot get rid of uncertainty. We can diminish it, but we cannot make it disappear. Hence we should not experience it as some kind of nightmare. On the contrary, we should be reconciled to it as our lifelong companion. In the end, it is a kind and good one. It is probability that makes life interesting. It is because of probability that we can be touched by the unexpected. It is probability that allows us to remain open to further knowledge. We are limited and mortal, we can learn to accept the limits of our knowledge – but we can still aim to learn and to look for the foundation of this knowledge. It is not certainty. It is reliability.
A third good passage
In order to understand the world, you need to have the courage to experiment with ideas not to fear failure, to constantly revise your opinions, to make them work better.
The Einstein who makes more errors than anyone else is precisely the same Einstein who succeeds in understanding more about nature than anyone else, and these are complementary and necessary aspects of the same profound intelligence: the audacity of thought, the courage to take risks, the lack of faith in received ideas – including, crucially, one’s own.
To have the courage to make mistakes, to change one’s ideas, not once but repeatedly, in order to discover. In order to arrive at understanding.
What’s important is not being right. It’s to try to understand.