. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that our understanding of reality is shaped by practical benefits rather than absolute truth.
Henri Poincare suggests that our cognitive framework and perceptions of the world have evolved through natural selection for survival. The 'geometry' of our minds denotes our interpretative models, which prioritize convenience and utility over an objective truth. Thus, what we consider 'true' is often merely what is most beneficial for our species.
In practice
In a discussion about how different cultures interpret reality based on practical needs.
When the logician has resolved each demonstration into a host of elementary operations, all of them correct, he will not yet be in possession of the whole reality, that indefinable something that constitutes the unity ... Now pure logic cannot give us this view of the whole; it is to intuition that we must look for it.
It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry; the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places.
A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.
The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.
What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them; it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that; it is one that can be understood by the pupils.
Most striking at first is the appearance of sudden illumination, a manifest sign of long unconscious prior work.
We’re too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.
I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace is an interlude during war.
Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
Faith is a kind of knowing; it is different from hope. My faith is that life is purposeful; of that I'm sure. There is a God, there is intelligence, there is consciousness. And behind all of this, there is incredible compassion.
The world is mere change, and this life, opinion.
I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world.
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