Quotes About Subjectivity

If they are bizarre, if they don't fit our reality-tunnel, and if they go away quickly, we are happy to dismiss them as only appearances, or as misperceptions.

In San Francisco I read a review of John Huston's recent movie, Victory, which described it as exciting. In the Irish Tribune yesterday I read another review which described it as dull. Is the excitement or dullness in the movie, or was it in the nervous systems of the reviewers?

What is tuned-in by Mr. A may not be tuned-in by Ms. B, but that does not mean that either of them is crazy or perverse. It merely means that every reality-tunnel encourages us to notice some things and ignore or forget other things.

None of the reality-models discussed in this chapter, however bizarre they may seem to some readers, are any more arbitrary than the official reality-model known as consensus-reality, which is a statistical average and not nearly consensual as it seems. Travel 100 miles in any direction, and the consensus begins to crumble. Travel 1000 miles and very little consensus is left . . .

If there are no things which are important, then things are assigned importance arbitrarily and defended at great risk. Because the risk validates the importance.

We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different from one another on the outside of our heads.

Ask me what you wish; just do not ask me for reasons.

A moment was not a single moment at all, but rather an infinite number of different moments, depending on who was seeing things and how.

A moment was not a single moment at all, but rather an infinite number of different amounts depending on who was seeing things and how.

Ovi listovi govore o mnogima, ali za mene samo o jednoj.

Og menneske skulde man ikke være; nei, men gjenstand, ting. Når en mand stanset mig på gaten og spurte om veien vilde jeg kunne svare: Det vet jeg ikke. Men spør en anden gaslykt.

Every person defines reality in his own way. And every person figures that anybody who doesn't agree with him has got to be irrational.

it depends on whose reality you're using for rules. You just have to remember that, and then you can see that nothing should be taken absolutely seriously. Personally, I always like to use my own reality as a standard.

So every person sets up his own rules, and then uses them to judge everybody else. You just have to realize that.There is no real normal. You have to just decide what you believe. And stay open to new ideas. For the time being I am using my own concept of reality as a guide. Ginny to Caulder and Micheal

I think each woman has her own relationship to beauty.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

The story of my family. . .changes with the teller.

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

religion, like beauty, cannot be experienced in cold blood.

The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.

No doubt, intuitions deserve respect. ...[but] I think that it is always up for grabs what an intuition is an intuition of. At a minimum, it is surely sometimes up for grabs.

Criticism is just someone's opinion you don't agree with!

But I know how this romantic stuff works: one girl's perfect guy is another girl's reject. And right now I'm glad of it.