Quote

every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.

Thomas Nagel

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Thomas Nagel
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: July 4
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Belgrade
Serbia
Views
Objectives
Point
Inevitable
Seems
Connected
Subjectivity
Every
Physical
Subjective
View
Objective
Theory
Essentially
Single
Abandon
Consciousness
Phenomenon

More quotes by Thomas Nagel

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A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act of the will.
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We are an episode between two oblivions.
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Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.
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Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.
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If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity's point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.
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Perhaps the belief in God is the belief that the universe is intelligible, but not to us.
Thomas Nagel
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Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.
Thomas Nagel
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Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.
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If you want the truth rather than merely something to say, you will have a good deal less to say.
Thomas Nagel
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Humans are addicted to the hope for a final reckoning, but intellectual humility requires that we resist the temptation to assume that tools of the kind we now have are in principle sufficient to understand the universe as a whole.
Thomas Nagel
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I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.
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To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.
Thomas Nagel
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There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
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fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism.
Thomas Nagel
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Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.
Thomas Nagel
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Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.
Thomas Nagel
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Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.
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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
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If we tried to rely entirely on reason, and pressed it hard, our lives and beliefs would collapse - a form of madness that may actually occur if the inertial force of taking the world and life for granted is somehow lost. If we lose our grip on that, reason will not give it back to us.
Thomas Nagel
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I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.
Thomas Nagel