Research

Usefulness of useless knowledge: Is it not a curious fact that in a world steeped in irrational hatreds which threaten civilization itself, men and women—old and young—detach themselves wholly or partly from the angry current of daily life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, to the extension of knowledge, to the cure of disease, to the amelioration of suffering, just as though fanatics were not simultaneously engaged in spreading pain, ugliness, and suffering? The world has always been a sorry and confused sort of place—yet poets and artists and scientists have ignored the factors that would, if attended to, paralyze them. From a practical point of view, intellectual and spiritual life is, on the surface, a useless form of activity, in which men indulge because they procure for themselves greater satisfactions than are otherwise obtainable (read more).  A Flexner

We don’t see that we don’t see. H Maturana

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. CG Jung

Recognize that unlearning is the highest form of learning. Rumi

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. RM Rilke

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. TS Eliot

Personal self-satisfaction is the death of the scientist. Collective self-satisfaction is the death of the research. It is restlessness, anxiety, dissatisfaction, agony of mind that nourish science. J Monod

Pain + reflection = progress. R Dalio

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. A Einstein

Team

Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision. P Senge

Systems thinking

There is only one problem in the world: interdependence. P Senge

Biology is complex, non-linear and networked while the methods we are using to interrogate and control it are reductionist, linear and isolated. A Jogalekar