80 Quotes by Roger Penrose

There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, ....

No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.

People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realization and then a little realization built on that.

The more deeply we probe the fundamentals of physical behaviour, the more that it is very precisely controlled by mathematics.

If you come from mathematics, as I do, you realize that there are many problems, even classical problems, which cannot be solved by computation alone

Objective mathematical notions must be thought of as timeless entities and are not to be regarded as being conjured into existence at the moment that they are first humanly perceived.

But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.