“If everybody would agree that their current reality is a reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity for constructing a reality, then perhaps we could all agree on a meta-agreement for computing a reality that would mean survival and dignity for everyone on the planet, rather than each group being sold on a particular way of doing things.”

— Francisco Varela

Varela (1975) in: Anne Waldman eds. (1975) The Coevolution quarterly. Nr. 8-12, p. 31

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 "If everybody would agree that their current reality is a reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity fo…" by Francisco Varela?

Francisco Varela 17

Chilean biologist 1946–2001

Related quotes

“We know only what we do, what we make, what we construct; and all that we make, all that we construct, are realities. I call them images, not in Plato's sense (namely that they are only reflections of reality), but I hold that these images are the reality itself and that there is no reality beyond this reality except when in our creative process we change the images: then we have created new realities.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

Quote of Naum Gabo, 1950; as cited in: Eidos: a journal of painting, sculpture and design. Nr.1, p. 31
1936 - 1977

“Is there any difference between our desires becoming reality, and our desiring what is already real? What matters is that our will and reality agree with one another.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) Argentine novelist

"¿No es lo mismo que suceda lo que deseamos, que desear lo que suceda? Lo que importa es que nuestra voluntad y los sucesos estén de acuerdo."
La otra aventura, 1968.

“It comforts me to think that if we are created beings, the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it. It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality, and so it would seem to us, look out from within our reality, that is would contradict reason. But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater that reality, or it would not be reasonable.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“The 'physical' does not mean any particular kind of reality, but a particular kind of denoting reality, namely a system of concepts in the natural sciences which is necessary for the cognition of reality. 'The physical' should not be interpreted wrongly as an attribute of one part of reality, but not of the other; it is rather a word denoting a kind of conceptual construction, as, e. g., the markers 'geographical' or 'mathematical', which denote not any distinct properties of real things, but always merely a manner of presenting them by means of ideas.”

Moritz Schlick book Théorie générale de la connaissance

Source: Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, 1925, p. 27 i. ; as cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 83

“We humans like to imagine that we have an objective knowledge of the world. We take it for granted that what we perceive on a daily basis is reality—this reality being more or less the same for everybody. But this is an illusion. No two people see or experience the world in the same way. What we perceive is our personal version of reality, one that is of our own creation. To realize this is a critical step in our understanding of human nature.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 8 : Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

“There is no greater mystery than this: being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

“We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Context: We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are seaching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.

“Tautologies and contradictions are not real propositions, but degenerate cases. …Clearly, by negating a contradiction we get a tautology, and by negating a tautology a contradiction. …A genuine proposition asserts something about reality, and it is true if reality is as it is asserted to be. But a tautology is a symbol constructed so as to say nothing whatever about reality, but to express total ignorance by agreeing with every possibility.”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

The Foundations of Mathematics (1925)

“I would like everyone to understand that the Church in this society is not a foreign element but a profoundly domestic reality that truly wants the good for each person. We hope to find agreement and a suitable response from the other side.”

Josip Mrzljak (1944) Croatian Roman Catholic bishop

Source: Josip Mrzljak Appointed as the New Bishop of Varaždin https://ika.hkm.hr/english/josip-mrzljak-appointed-as-the-new-bishop-of-varazdin/ (2007)

“Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.”

John Twelve Hawks American writer

Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Francisco Varela 17

Related quotes

Related topics