“Was not the arbitrary distinction between illusion and reality the ultimate illusion itself?”
Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 13 (p. 164)
“The illusion of free will… is itself an illusion.”
Sam Harris at Sydney Opera House Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2012, Discussion on Free Will http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3raA1EwrI.
2010s
Context: The illusion of free will... is itself an illusion. There is no illusion of free will. Thoughts and intentions simply arise. What else could they do? Now, some of you might think this sounds depressing, but it's actually incredibly freeing to see life this way. It does take something away from life: what it takes away from life is an egocentric view of life. We're not truly separate: we are linked to one another, we are linked to the world, we are linked to our past, and to history. And what we do actually matters because of that linkage, because of the permeability, because of the fact that we can't be the true locus of responsibility. That's what makes it all matter.
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Sam Harris 151
American author, philosopher and neuroscientist 1967Related quotes
“Free will is an illusion. It is synonymous with incomplete perception.”
Source: Flashforward (1999), Chapter 12 epigram (p. 123; quoting Walter Kubilius)
“We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.”
Source: The Wanting Seed
“Fear best lends itself to the creation of Nature-defying illusions.”
H.P. Lovecraft
(1890–1937) American author
“The painful truth is that while we might have the illusion, none of us are free.”
Source: Flesh and Fire (2009), p. 304
“God is eternally free. To realize God is to attain liberation from the bondage of illusion.”
Meher Baba
(1894–1969) Indian mystic
Message at Andhra (1954) <!-- MD p. 8 --> Vol. 12, p. 4328.
Lord Meher (1986)
Context: God is eternally free. To realize God is to attain liberation from the bondage of illusion. The greater the strife and the more intensified the struggle to attain liberation, the more the shackles of illusion are felt, because this very action brings greater awareness of the illusion, which then becomes all the more impressive and realistic. All actions, whether good or bad, just or unjust, charitable or uncharitable, are responsible in making the bond of illusion firmer and tighter.
The goal is to achieve perfect inaction, which does not mean merely inactivity. When the self is absent, one achieves inaction in one's every action.
Daniel Buren
(1938) sculptor from France
Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni, at the Paris Biennale in October 1967. Translated and cited in: Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, New York: Praeger, (1973), p. 30.
1960s