“Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next—a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please—your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become conscious of this “decision” and believe that you are in the process of making it.”
― Free Will
― Free Will
“Our point of departure must be the conception of an almost childlike play-sense expressing itself in various play-forms, some serious, some playful, but all rooted in ritual and productive of culture by allowing the innate human need of rhythm, harmony, change, alternation, contrast and climax, etc., to unfold in full richness.”
― Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture
― Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
―
―
“So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...”
― Solaris
― Solaris
“At one conference Hameroff told Dennett, publicly, "You know, Dan, maybe the reason you like this [mechanistic] idea is because you're a zombie. And maybe the reason I see things differently is because, I'm not."
Hameroff told me he was half-joking. But Dennett took offense. "I wound up apologizing," says Hameroff. "I guess he only likes the idea of being a zombie if we're all zombies.”
― Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't
Hameroff told me he was half-joking. But Dennett took offense. "I wound up apologizing," says Hameroff. "I guess he only likes the idea of being a zombie if we're all zombies.”
― Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't
Magic Realism
— 1038 members
— last activity May 20, 2026 05:55AM
Magic realism is a global and varied mode of literature, from the early twentieth century European works which made the everyday seem magical, to the ...more
Nicolas’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Nicolas’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Nicolas
Lists liked by Nicolas























