#irrationality

The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#class #irrationality #nirvana #reason #society

All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it. ↗

— Charles Brockden Brown

#obsession #perversity #men

Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we've managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal. ↗

— Terence McKenna

#rationality #reality #science #ufos #unreality

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible. ↗

— Stanisław Lem

#irrationality #religion #faith

Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. ↗

— Austin O'Malley

#irrationality #memory #food

Intelligence is not limited to neural networks, Merrill. Indeed, half of human intelligence resides in our bodies outside our skulls…The genius of the irrational…This is the body’s intelligence, not the mind’s. Every living cell possess it…[the] indomitable will to survive. ↗

— David Marusek

#gut-instinct #intelligence #irrationality #mentars #sentience

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. ↗

— Martin Amis

#atheism #dignity #irrationality #reason #religion

To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#logic #rationalisation #reason #september- #iraq

I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#accept #back #childhood #christmas #dose

Interestingly, human irrationality is a hot topic in economics at the moment. Behavioural economics it's called, on the cusp of economics and psychology. ↗

— Evan Davis

#called #cusp #economics #hot #human