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Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Thomas Nagel Quotes

“If a psychological Maxwell devises a general theory of mind, he may make it possible for a psychological Einstein to follow with a theory that the mental and the physical are really the same. But this could happen only at the end of a process which began with the recognition that the mental is something completely different from the physical world as we have come to know it through a certain highly successful form of detached objective understanding. Only if the uniqueness of the mental is recognized will concepts and theories be devised especially for the purpose of understanding it.”

IfsKnowsWorldMindMayDifferentEndsHappensFormPurposeCertainProcessUnderstandingSuccessfulTheoryConceptsObjectivesPsychologicalRecognitionUniquenessDetachedMaxwell
Book:The View From Nowhere
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“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.”

PeopleKnowsWantBelieveWellsMadeGodFactsUniverseBeliefReligiousAtheismIntelligentDon't BelieveAtheistBelieverBeing TrueBelieve In GodThere Is No GodUneasy
Author:Thomas Nagel
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“It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.”

KnowsStoriesTogetherNaturalResultsExampleArgumentResponseAccidentsFavorsBeing TrueAlternativesExplanationAbandonChemicalsMechanismLackingProbabilitySelectionSequenceNatural SelectionCredibleSchemas
Author:Thomas Nagel
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