Robert A. Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

Beware of the "Black Swan" fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you—with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the "GIGO Law," i.e., "Garbage in, garbage out." Inductive logic is much more difficult—but can produce new truths.

A dozen Heinlein quotations for sci fi day

Robert A. Heinlein (writing about Stranger In A Strange Land)

I was asking questions. I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers. If I managed to shake him loose from some prejudice, preconception, or unexamined assumption, that was all I intended to do. A rational human being does not need answers, spoon fed to him on "faith," he needs questions to worry over—serious ones. The quality of the answers then depends on him... But anyone who takes that book as answers is cheating himself. It is an invitation to think—not to believe.

A dozen Heinlein quotations for sci fi day

Robert A. Heinlein - Lost Legacy

When I was a young student, I thought modern psychology could tell me the answers, but I soon found out that the best psychologists didn’t know a damn thing about the real core of the matter. Oh, I am not disparaging the work that has been done; it was badly needed and had been very useful in its way. None of ’em know what life is, what thought is, whether free will is a reality or an illusion, or whether that last question means anything. The best of ’em admit their ignorance; the worst of them make dogmatic assertions that are obvious absurdities.

A dozen Heinlein quotations for sci fi day

Robert A. Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute—get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

A dozen Heinlein quotations for sci fi day