Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert M. Pirsig
Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllZen Motorcycle MaintenanceIfsPeopleQualityMindThinkingPhilosophyKnowsWayZenWorldValuesRealIntellectualDoeRationalityRealitySocialMotorcyclePatterns

Famous Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

“The only difference between causation and the value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences.”

WorldValuesIndividualCausesTermDifferencesModernChangedBehaviorAbsolutesPatternsCommittedPhysicsCertaintyConsistentAppropriateQuantumPreferenceParticlesPredictableQuantum PhysicsImpliedCausationAbsolute Certainty
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image

“Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They originate out of society, which originates out of inorganic nature. And, as anthropologists know so well, what a mind thinks is as dominated by biological patterns as social patterns are dominated by biological patterns and as biological patterns are dominated by inorganic patterns. There is no direct scientific connection between mind and matter. As the atomic scientist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended in language." Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived.”

ThinkingKnowsMindWellsSaidMatterLanguageSocialIntellectualDirectConnectionsScientistPatternsDescriptionSuspendedAnthropologistsMind And Matter
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image