“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work - that is correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area. Furthermore, it must satisfy certain esthetic criteria - that is, in relation to how much it describes, it must be rather simple.”

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”

“Science requires both observation and comprehension. Without observation there are no facts to be comprehended; without comprehension science is mere documentation. The basis for comprehension is theory, and the language of theoretical science is mathematics. Theory is constructed on a foundation of hypothesis; the fewer the hypotheses needed to explain existing observations and predict new phenomena, the more ‘elegant’ the theory”

“There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities...more worthy to express the invariable relations of all natural things [than mathematics]. [It interprets] all phenomena by the same language, as if to attest the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make still more evident that unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes”

“[People] cannot live without seeking to describe and explain the universe to themselves. The models they use in doing this must deeply affect their lives, not least when they are unconscious; much of [their] misery and frustration…is due to the mechanical and unconscious, as well as deliberate, application of models where they do not work…The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist [people] to understand themselves and thus operate in the open and not wildly, in the dark.”

“There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena”