Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Colin McGinn

Quote by Colin McGinn

“The head spins in theoretical disarray; no explanatory model suggests itself; bizarre ontologies loom. There is a feeling of intense confusion, but no clear idea about where the confusion lies.”

Quote by Colin McGinn

Create image

Author

Colin McGinn
Colin McGinn

Colin McGinn is a renowned British philosopher known for his contributions to the philosophy of consciousness, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. His research delves into the nature of consciousness, self, language, and mind, having a profound impact on contemporary philosophy. more

You May Also Like

“By extricating 'reality' from mind, materialism has sent the significance of nature into exile. With the pathetic grin of hubris stamped on our foolish faces, we carefully unwrap the package and then proceed to throw away its contents whileb proudly storing the empty box on the altar of our ontology. What a huge stash of empty boxes have we accumulated! Idols of stupidity they are; public reminders of a state of affairs that would be hilarious if it weren't tragic.”

LifeConsciousnessMeaningIdealismIdealisticHard Problem Of ConsciousnessBernardo KastrupKastrup
Book:Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There is no Death and Fathom Answers to Life, the Universe and Everything
Create image

“In 1949, neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955) received a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ‘the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses’. Today, prefrontal leucotomy is derided as a barbaric treatment from a much darker age, and it is to be hoped that, one day, so too might antipsychotic drugs.”

FutureMental HealthMental IllnessPsychiatryMental DisordersLobotomyAntipsychotic DrugsAntipsychotic MedicationAntipsychotics
Book:The Meaning of Madness
Create image

“Shane lingered over a sickly sweet bit of doggerel comparing accepting Christ into one’s life with turning a pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern. “It sounds like God is seriously going to mutilate you.” Roselyn took the pamphlet from Shane, her eyes flickering over the text. “I always pictured it a bit more like a lobotomy than an evisceration.”

GodJesusChristChristianityJesus ChristConversionConvertLobotomyEvisceration
Book:Flies to Wanton Boys
Create image

“The best thing would perhaps be to remove consciousness surgically in utero, together with irony, criticism and intelligence - all those qualities that are so fragile and so dangerous to existence in general. One might take advantage of this (all in a specialized Psycho-Genetic Institute, akin to the Institute of Zodiacal Semiurgy, where the surgical removal of star signs is practised) to be rid of the Unconscious, the extraction of which, like the extraction of all the irregularities of the genome, would be a great relief for future generations.”

TranshumanismLobotomy
Book:Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004
Create image

“Science has and continues to make huge mistakes, and yet continues to arrogantly declare itself as the end all and be all of rational explanation of the universe. What are some of sciences big gaffs? The list is almost endless: the efficacy of frontal lobotomies, The Blank Slate theory (or Tabula rasa), Phlogiston Theory, the definition of the “GENE” (which has changed over and over since it was coined by Johansson in 1909), that we cannot send information faster than the speed of light, classifying humans into the different races, the invention of nuclear weapons, fossil fuels, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), leaded petrol and DDT.”

LobotomyDdtScientific ArroganceChlorofluorocarbonsMistakes Of SciencePhlogiston
Book:Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!
Create image

“Now there is no normal process except death which completely clears the brain from all past impressions; and after death, it is impossible to set it going again. Of all normal processes, sleep comes the nearest to a non-pathological clearing. How often we find that the best way to handle a complicated worry or an intellectual muddle is to sleep over it! However, sleep does not clear away the deeper memories, nor indeed is a sufficiently malignant state of worry compatible with an adequate sleep. We are thus often forced to resort to more violent types of intervention in the memory cycle. The more violent of these involve a surgical intervention into the brain, leaving behind it permanent damage, mutilation, and the abridgment of the powers of the victim, as the mammalian central nervous system seems to possess no powers whatever of regeneration. The principal type of surgical intervention which has been practiced is known as prefrontal lobotomy, and consists in the removal or isolation of a portion of the prefrontal lobe of the cortex. It has recently been having a certain vogue, probably not unconnected with the fact that it makes the custodial care of many patients easier. Let me remark in passing that killing them makes their custodial care still easier. However, prefrontal lobotomy does seem to have a genuine effect on malignant worry, not by bringing the patient nearer to a solution of his problems but by damaging or destroying the capacity for maintained worry, known in the terminology of another profession as the conscience. More generally, it appears to limit all aspects of the circulating memory, the ability to keep in mind a situation not actually presented. The various forms of shock treatment—electric, insulin, metrazol—are less drastic methods of doing a very similar thing. They do not destroy brain tissue or at least are not intended to destroy it, but they do have a decidedly damaging effect on the memory. In so far as this concerns the circulating memory, and in so far as this memory is chiefly damaged for the recent period of mental disorder, and is probably scarcely worth preserving anyhow, shock treatment has something definite to recommend it as against lobotomy; but it is not always free from deleterious effects on the permanent memory and the personality. As it stands at present, it is another violent, imperfectly understood, imperfectly controlled method to interrupt a mental vicious circle. This does not prevent its being in many cases the best thing we can do at present.”

BrainwashingLobotomyElectroconvulsive TherapyShock Treatment
Book:Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
Create image