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Quote by Frans de Waal

“Religions have a strong binding function and a cohesive element. They emphasize the primacy of the community as opposed to the individual, and they also help set one community apart from another that doesn't share their beliefs.”

Quote by Frans de Waal

Author

Frans de Waal
Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal is a renowned primatologist, born on October 29, 1948. His research focuses on the social behavior and cognitive abilities of non-human primates, having a profound impact on human ethology and social psychology. more

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“As I have already said, the belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous or all delusions. It becomes still more dangerous if it is coupled with the missionary zeal to enlighten the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wishes to be enlightened or not. To refuse to embrace wholeheartedly a particular definition of reality, to dare to see the world differently can become a "think crime" in a truly Orwellian sense as we get steadily closer to 1984.”

“Man never ceases to seek knowledge about the objects of his experiences, to understand their meaning for his existence and to react to them according to his understanding. Finally, out of the sum total of the meanings that he has deduced from his contacts with numerous single objects of his environment there grows a unified view of the world into which he finds himself "thrown" (to use an existentialist term again) and this view is of the third order.”

“If we have dwelled on Godel's work at some length, is it because we see it in the mathematical analogy of what we would call the the ultimate paradox of man's existence. Man is ultimately subject and object of his quest. While the question whether the mind can be considered to be anything like a formalized system, as defined in the preceding paragraph, is probably unanswerable, his quest for an understanding of the meaning of his existence is an attempt at formalization.”

“But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: "For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist."”