“Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness.”

— Erwin Schrödinger

As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91
Context: Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 30, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness." by Erwin Schrödinger?

Erwin Schrödinger 67

Austrian physicist 1887–1961

Related quotes

“The truth is sum, ergo cogito — I am, therefore I think, although not everything that is thinks. Is not consciousness of thinking above all consciousness of being?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point
Context: The truth is sum, ergo cogito — I am, therefore I think, although not everything that is thinks. Is not consciousness of thinking above all consciousness of being? Is pure thought possible, without consciousness of self, without personality? Can there exist pure knowledge without feeling, without that species of materiality which feelings lends to it? Do we not perhaps feel thought, and do we not feel ourselves in the act of knowing and willing? Could not the man in the stove [Descartes] have said: "I feel, therefore I am"? or "I will, therefore I am"? And to feel oneself, is it not perhaps to feel oneself imperishable?

“I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in… loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.”

Robin McKinley book Sunshine

Source: Sunshine

“And he arrives at the cogito ergo sum, which St. Augustine had already anticipated… "I think therefore I am," can only mean "I think, therefore I am a thinker"; this being of "I am," which is deduced from "I think," is merely a knowing; this being is a knowledge, but not life. And the primary reality is not that I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. Although this living may not be a real living. God! what contradictions when we seek to join in wedlock life and reason!”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point

“I think it a very happy accident.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 58.

“The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.
Youth