“I guess I can't, or my subconscious can't, even imagine a warless world. The best it can do is substitute one kind of war for another. You said, no killing of humans by other humans. So I dreamed up the Aliens. Your own ideas are sane and rational, but this is my unconscious you're trying to use, not my rational mind. Maybe rationally I could conceive of the human species not trying to kill each other off by nations, in fact rationally it's easier to conceive of than the motives of war. But you're handling something outside reason. You're trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn't suited to the job. Who has humanitarian dreams?”

— Ursula K. Le Guin , book The Lathe of Heaven

Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 6 (Orr)

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 "I guess I can't, or my subconscious can't, even imagine a warless world. The best it can do is substitute one kind of w…" by Ursula K. Le Guin?

Ursula K. Le Guin 292

American writer 1929–2018

Related quotes

“If our squawking pacifists were rational, they would perceive that war can be ended only by abolishing the several species of mammals called human; our spacecraft have shown us that Mars and Venus are perfectly warless worlds.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"On the Roof of the World", Liberty Bell magazine (December 1987)
1970s, 1980s

“In other words, when I say "what's the evidence for that?", it's not that I don't trust your rationality (although of course I don't trust your rationality either), but I just can't deduce what evidence you must have observed from your probability declaration alone even if you were fully rational.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zsznamBgNuj3XX2DP/self-congratulatory-rationalism#2pmeNAZ33A8y43464 on LessWrong, March 2014

“As conceived in this book, economics is the science of rational choice in a world─our world─in which resources are limited in relation to human wants. The task of economics, so defined, is to explore the implications of assuming that man is a rational maximizer of his ends in life, his satisfactions─what we shall call his “self-interest.” Rational maximization should not be confused with conscious calculation. Economics is not a thoery about consciousness. Behavior is rational when it conforms to the model of rational choice, whatever the state of mind of the chooser.(…) Nor is perfect rationality assumed; rational-choice thoery allows us to assume that rationality is “bounded” because of human cognitive limitations, although another way to think of those limitations is as costs of absorbing and using information.”

Richard A. Posner (1939) United States federal judge

Source: Economic Analysis of Law (7th ed., 2007), Ch. 1: The Nature of Economic Reasoning

“The type of rationality we assume in economics — perfect, logical, deductive rationality — is extremely useful in generating solutions to theoretical problems. But it demands much of human behavior — much more in fact than it can usually deliver. If we were to imagine the vast collection of decision problems economic agents might conceivably deal with as a sea or an ocean, with the easier problems on top and more complicated ones at increasing depth, then deductive rationality would describe human behavior accurately only within a few feet of the surface. For example, the game Tic-Tac-Toe is simple, and we can readily find a perfectly rational, minimax solution to it. But we do not find rational “solutions” at the depth of Checkers; and certainly not at the still modest depths of Chess and Go.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality (The El Farol Problem) (1994), p. 1

“You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?"
"It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize."
"Must be a human thing."
"Exactly.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

“What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“I can't do it, I can't conceive
You're everything you're trying to make me believe”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"How Am I Different" (co-written with Jon Brion) · Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW7gUnN7yxo
Song lyrics, Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo (2000)
Context: I can't do it, I can't conceive
You're everything you're trying to make me believe 'Cause this show is too well designed
Too well to be held with only me in mind And how, how am I different?
How, how am I different?

“The point is that humans are rarely at their best when they use rational reasoning.”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 4, Positive Feedbacks, p. 106.

“Critique in its many manifestations puts up a common opposition to instrumental rationality, because such a rationality can be linked to control in the human condition in a similar way to the idea of power in the control of the natural world.”

Robert L. Flood (1959) British organizational scientist

Robert L. Flood (1990) Liberating Systems Theory p. 204; as cited in: Trudi Cooper (2003) Critical Management, Critical Systems Theory And System Dynamics http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/cmsconference/2003/proceedings/orsystems/Cooper.pdf.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ursula K. Le Guin 292

Related quotes

Related topics