“As a general matter, I believe we should be very slow to make conclusions about the nature of the cosmos based upon inner experience – no matter how profound these experiences seem.”

Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ (5 July 2011) <br class="br">2010s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "As a general matter, I believe we should be very slow to make conclusions about the nature of the cosmos based upon inn…" by Sam Harris?

Sam Harris photo

Sam Harris151

American author, philosopher and neuroscientist 1967

Related quotes

“I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son A Personal Matter, I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our "personal matter," and society.”

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author

Conversations with History interview (1999)

“It seems like we can’t experience reality no matter how hard we try. Because illusion is always waiting at the end of the tunnel.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

“China makes its observation and conclusion based independently- based on the merits of the matter itself.”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

"Transcript: Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang on Face the Nation" in CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/qin-gang-chinese-ambassador-face-the-nation-03-20-2022/ (20 March 2022)

“The role of past experience is of high importance, but what matters is what one has gained from experience — blind, understood connections, or insight into structural inner relatedness. What matters is how and what one recalls, hoVi he applies what is recalled, whether blindly, in a piece meal way, or in accordance with the situation.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: Productive thinking, 1945, p. 62

“In all my experiments I could, owing to lack of time, pay attention to only those matters which appeared to have a bearing upon practical optics. I could either not touch other questions, or at most not follow them very far. Since the path thus traced in optical experiments seems to promise to lead to interesting results, it is greatly to be desired that skilled investigators should devote attention to it.”

Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826) German optical physicist

Prismatic and Diffraction Spectra: Memoirs (1899) Tr. & Ed. J. S. Ames p. 10

“In my experience, milady, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“Nothing is more commonplace than the reading experience, and yet nothing is more unknown. Reading is such a matter of course that at first glance it seems there is nothing to say about it.”

Tzvetan Todorov (1939–2017) Bulgarian historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist

Reading as Construction (1980)

“I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture III, Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered
1900s, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

“The Protestants say that it is the duty of every person to read, to understand, and to believe this revelation—that a man should use his reason; but if he honestly concludes that the Bible is not a revelation from God, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented forever. They say:—“Read,” and then add: “Believe, or be damned.” “No matter how unreasonable the Bible may appear to you, you must believe. No matter how impossible the miracles may seem, you must believe. No matter how cruel the laws, your heart must approve them all!” This is what the church calls the liberty of thought. We read the Bible under the scowl and threat of God. We read by the glare of hell.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Truth (1896)

Related topics