Thomas Nagel
absurdity manifestation characteristic
“Absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics.”
― Thomas Nagel
live life dark contradictory impulse madness surface
“The point is... to live one's life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstacy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world.”
― Thomas Nagel
life meaningless worry regognise
“Even if life as a whole is meaningless, perhaps that's nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognise it and just go on as before.”
― Thomas Nagel
million years matter meaning
“It is often remarked that nothing we do now will matter in a million years. But if that is true, then by the same token, nothing that will be the case in a million years matters now. In particular, it does not matter now that in million years nothing we do now will matter.”
― Thomas Nagel
radical conclusion mind exist
“The most radical conclusion to draw from this would be that your mind is the only thing that exists.”
― Thomas Nagel
life meaningless absurd
“Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.”
― Thomas Nagel
understand mind computer-like conscious being waste
“Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time.”
― Thomas Nagel
human will believe inexhaustible
“The human will to believe is inexhaustible”
― Thomas Nagel
physics science mid explanation more world
“Physical science has progressed by leaving the mind out of what it tries to explain, but there may be more to the world than can be understood by physical science.”
― Thomas Nagel
consciousness obstacle naturalism universe
“Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science. The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth, and that the natural order is far less austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for everything. If we take this problem seriously, and follow out its implications, it threatens to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture.”
― Thomas Nagel
world astonishing basic tools understand credible Aristotle
“The world is an astonishing place, and the idea that we have in our possession the basic tools needed to understand it is no more credible now than it was in Aristotle’s day.”
― Thomas Nagel
episode oblivions
"We are an episode between two oblivions."
― Thomas Nagel
belief god universe intelligible
"Perhaps the belief in God is the belief that the universe is intelligible, but not to us."
― Thomas Nagel
consciousness mind-body problem interesting hopeless
"Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless."
― Thomas Nagel
problem solution intuition argument discord harmony
"My own philosophical symphaties and antipathies are easily stated. I believe one should trust problems over solutions, intuition over arguments, and pluralistic discord over systematic harmony....Given a knockdown argument for an intuitively unacceptable conclusion, one should assume there is probably something wrong with the argument that one cannot detect – though it is also possible that the source of the intuition has been misidentified. If arguments or systematic theoretical considerations lead to results that seem intuitively not to make sense, or if a neat solution to a problem does not remove the conviction that the problem is still there, or if a demonstration that some question is unreal leaves us still wanting to ask it, then something is wrong with the argument and more work needs to be done."
― Thomas Nagel