Arthur Koestler Quotes
As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of 'mind' with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l' esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part.
Koestler, Arthur. The Ghost in the Machine. Macmillan, 1967, p. 199.
Much of modern science involves non-intuitive concepts that can rarely if ever be discovered using common sense. It was hard enough for most people to accept the notion of an infinite number, but now we know that there are many infinite numbers and they are all different form one another. Darwinian thinking was contrary to most learned thought of the day, and even much public opinion today. Even Albert Einstein had to struggle to comprehend the findings of Quantum Mechanics which are very non intuitive—one object can be in two different places at the same time. Meanwhile, most people are totally unaware that the world around is does not correspond to normal human intuition and common sense. Yet these are the same and only tools that we continue to use in making decisions about our society. And the fundamental truths of yesterday, the foundation of past thinking and glory, are the naïve simplifications and errors of today and become the superstitions of tomorrow.
Arthur Koestler, CBE was a Hungarian British author, journalist and jewish intellectual. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany, but he resigned in 1938 because Stalinism disillusioned him.
