“Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness.”
Consciousness and Language (2002) p. 47.
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John Rogers Searle 37
American philosopher 1932Related quotes
"Answer #3" at his official website. http://www.chickcorea.com/from_chick.html
Context: I believe that any "awareness" of life is "spiritual" since awareness can only be a quality of the spirit not of the material world or of matter and machines. Only a spiritual being has awareness. But if you mean "spiritual" in the sense of a kind of "celebration of Life", then yes, I write music to celebrate life. I think most artists do, no matter how they themselves describe it. It's the joy of creating. It's a way of life.
Variant: Each system has a specific structure made up of certain maintained relationships among its parts, and manifests irreducible characteristics of its own.
Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 12.
Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)
Introduction
Higher Mathematics for Chemical Students (1911)
Context: The results of a scrutiny of the materials of chemical science from a mathematical standpoint are pronounced in two directions. In the first we observe crude, qualitative notions, such as fire-stuff, or phlogiston, destroyed; and at the same time we perceive definite measurable quantities such as fixed air, or oxygen, taking their place. In the second direction we notice the establishment of generalizations, laws, or theories, in which a mass of quantitative data is reduced to order and made intelligible. Such are the law of conservation of matter, the laws of chemical combination, and the atomic theory.
Source: The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories