Thomas Nagel Quotes

Because the idea of zombies seems to make sense, and seems to, in a certain sense, be possible, I think one can use that to argue against the thesis that everything is purely physical. Now many people, I think, agree that the idea of zombies are conceivable, including people who want to be physicalists.

Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.

Every mental state is also physical.

Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical.

I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.

Now I have to say I'm a complete atheist, I have no religious views myself and no spiritual views, except very watered down humanistic spiritual views, and consciousness is just a fact of life, it's a natural fact of life.

We are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real.

Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

The actuality of all of material Nature is therefore kept out of action and that of all corporeality along with it, including the actuality of my body, the body of the cognizing subject.

There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter.

We are today beginning to see work by very reputable scientists that says the universe is created by our observations. It is not a coincidence; we are actively involved in physically shaping the world that we experience.

Thought is matter as much as the floor, the wall, the telephone, are matter.

We are living in a material world, so why not live with something beautiful?

To separate mind from body doesn't make any sense.

In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.

The body cannot be the soul.

Some say that you should not want money at all because the desire for money is materialistic and not Spiritual. But we want you to remember that you are here in this very physical world where Spirit has materialized. You cannot separate yourself from the aspect of yourself that is Spiritual, and while you are here in these bodies you cannot separate yourselves from that which is physical or material. All of the magnificent things of a physical nature that are surrounding you are Spiritual in nature.

The Net is pretty cool, but the physical world is the best medium ever.

Socialism and capitalism are both essentially materialist, just different ways of approaching the lifeless world of matter and deciding how to share the spoils.

That subject matter has never left me...The more you're in the material world, the more there is a tendency for a search for serenity and a need to not be distracted by physical elements that are around you.

I know fashion is a material thing, but we live in a material world and I love clothes.

There is nothing in the universe but matter.

One of the things capitalism does is, it does enhance and exacerbate the sin of pride, making yourself, the material world the center of your universe, instead of God's will.