There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World

by Carlo Rovelli

We live in a universe where ignorance prevails. We know many things, but there is a great deal more that we don’t know. We don’t know who we will encounter tomorrow in the street, we don’t know the causes of many illnesses, we don’t know the ultimate physical laws that govern the universe, we don’t know who will win the next election, we don’t really know what is good for us and what is bad. We don’t know if there will be an earthquake tomorrow. In this essentially uncertain world, it would be foolish to ask for absolute certainty. Whoever boasts of being certain is usually the least reliable. But this doesn’t mean either that we are completely in the dark. Between certainty and complete uncertainty there is a precious intermediate space—and it is in this intermediate space that our lives and our thoughts unfold.