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6552 | You can only explain the qualities of large objects using entities which lack those qualities [Heisenberg] |
Full Idea: It is impossible to explain the manifest qualities of ordinary middle-sized objects except by tracing these back to the behaviour of entities which themselves no longer possess these qualities. | |
From: Werner Heisenberg (Ancient Thought in Modern Physics [1937], p.119), quoted by William Lycan - Consciousness 8.10 | |
A reaction: Compare the similar wonderful remark by Lucretius (Idea 5713). If we accept this as a general principle for all of nature (including us) - and I do - then it is silly to complain that consciousness isn't found in basic physics. |