"How a scientist can accept a mystical answer I'll never understand.."

Well, I didn't watch the video. But I'm puzzled since nothing which you wrote seems to relate to the thread title in any way. Was it a mistake?
 
What I like about Feyman is his honesty, the fact that he can be friends with someone who he fundamentally disagrees with, the original video is one of my favourites. To me it makes no difference whether he sees things as 'mystical' or not, not believing in God, his love of life is what matters in my opinion.

Thanks for posting.
 
While on this matter my perspective is remarkably different to Feynman's, I think his quote in context makes clear that he was using "I don't understand know" in an authentic way. Not, as so many do, in the meaning of "I'm against those who . ." And said quote also shows a mindset different to that of the naysayers.

If you expect science to give all the answers to the wonderful questions about what we are, where we’re going, what the meaning of the universe is and so on, then I think you could easily become disillusioned and then look for some mystic answer to these problems. How a scientist can take a mystic answer I don’t know because the whole spirit is to understand-well, never mind that.

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go onto something else, but I don’t have to know an answer, I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.
 
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Feynman possibly didn't know it, but I believe that what he says in the video has a spiritual dimension; I'm thinking of his agnosticism, which he had to a far greater extent than a lot of present-day so-called scientists who often appear so cocksure about things. He knew what he didn't know, and in my view that's a prerequisite for any kind of meaningful enquiry about the nature of reality. He also recognised that he had beliefs, and knew that's what they were. He was just being what he was, sincerely carrying out his investigations of the world; and that has its due place in the evolution of humanity.

At any rate, I have a soft spot for him, because he was far beyond the ideological scientism of people like Dawkins. He took steps forward, where so many like to stay rooted and defensive about outmoded concepts.
 
Feynman possibly didn't know it, but I believe that what he says in the video has a spiritual dimension; I'm thinking of his agnosticism, which he had to a far greater extent than a lot of present-day so-called scientists who often appear so cocksure about things. He knew what he didn't know,......

Perfect Michael.
The video definitely has a spiritual dimension for me too.
 
Yeah, Feynman seems like a true skeptic rather than a materialist evangelical trying to preach anti-religious gospel. Which is not to say religions are correct, most of them have bundles of superstition and bigotry wrapped in a bow of supposed divine love.

Gilded turds, in other words.

I do think that given the crippling flaws in all the paradigms we should accept that the ultimate answers lie beyond the grasp of consensus truth verification systems.
 
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