X magazine (1959-62)
Context: The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it. General philosophical and technical information however interesting in itself is secondary to this reality.
“The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it. General philosophical and technical information however interesting in itself is secondary to this reality.”
X magazine (1959-62)
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Patrick Swift 60
British artist 1927–1983Related quotes
'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 44
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)
“Was not the arbitrary distinction between illusion and reality the ultimate illusion itself?”
Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 13 (p. 164)
As translated at Gallery of Russian Thinkers … selected by Dmitry Olshansky (2005)<!-- by Richard Schain --> http://www.isfp.co.uk/russian_thinkers/nikolay_berdyaev.html
Dream and Reality (1949)
Context: There is no objective reality. But there is only an illusion of consciousness, there is only an objectivication of reality, which was created by the spirit. The origin of life is creativity, freedom; and the personality, subject, and spirit are the representatives of that origin, but not the nature, not the object.
“Technicalities are, however, of more interest to historians than to contemporaries.”
Source: The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (1949), Chapter 22, “We Walked in Clouds” (p. 268)
“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.
1:73
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)