Iain Banks Quotes

It is not enough for theory to describe and analyze, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes.

We do not know a truth without knowing its cause.

We have the notion that we exist but we have no way to prove it. 'I am' is the closest foundation we can get.

The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.

Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question 'How?' but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question 'Why?'

The brain builds a version of the universe and projects this version of the universe like a bubble all around us. So I can say with some certainty, 'I think therefore I am.' But I cannot say, 'You think therefore you are,' because you are within my perceptual bubble.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.

Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proved.

Beware of solipsism Funny word. Sounds like it means "love of melons" or something. I looked it up. It means believing that "the self is the only reality." Am I solipsist?

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.

To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.

Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.

Solipsism may be logically consistent with present Quantum Mechanics, Monism in the sense of Materialism is not.

Scepticism is always a back road leading to some credo or other.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.

The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know.

I heard somebody open and shut the gate to the barn lot, but I didn't look around. If I didn't look around it would not be true that somebody had opened the gate with the creaky hinges, and that is a wonderful principle for a man to get hold of... What you don't know know don't hurt you, for it ain't real. They called that Idealism in my book I had when I was in college, and after I got hold of that principle I became an Idealist... If you are an Idealist it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.

It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things.

That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.

...I will not allow books to prove any thing." "But how shall we prove any thing?" "We never shall.

It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.

A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?'

Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?