David Chalmers Quotes

“Although I'm Australian, I find myself much more in sympathy with the Austrian version!”

“Even when I was studying mathematics, physics, and computer science, it always seemed that the problem of consciousness was about the most interesting problem out there for science to come to grips with.”

“Actually, I think my view is compatible with much of the work going on now in neuroscience and psychology, where people are studying the relationship of consciousness to neural and cognitive processes without really trying to reduce it to those processes.”

“With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.”

“Listen: Common sense doesn't mean what it used to mean."-Matthias Chalmers, STAIRWAY2 HEAVEN”

“The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do something to love and something to hope for.”

“Now I have to say I'm a complete atheist, I have no religious views myself and no spiritual views, except very watered down humanistic spiritual views, and consciousness is just a fact of life, it's a natural fact of life.”

“Let there be no mistake in your mind as to the special character of the man who has come to Christ, and is a true Christian. He is not an angel, he is not a half-angelic being, in whom is no weakness, or blemish, or infirmity - he is nothing of the kind. He is nothing more than a sinner who has found out his sinfulness, and has learned the blessed secret of living by faith in Christ. What was the glorious company of the apostles and prophets? What was the noble army of martyrs? What were Isaiah, Daniel, Peter, James, John, Paul, Polycarp, Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther, Ridley, Latimer, Bunyan, Baxter, Whitefield, Venn, Chalmers, Bickersteth, M’Cheyne? What were they all, but sinners who knew and felt their sins, and trusted only in Christ? What were they, but men who accepted the invitation I bring you this day, and came to Christ by faith? By this faith they lived; in this faith they died. In themselves and their doings they saw nothing worth mentioning; but in Christ they saw all that their souls required. The invitation of Christ is now before you. If you never listened to it before, listen to it today. Broad, full, free, wide, simple, tender, kind, that invitation will leave you without excuse if you refuse to accept it. There are some invitations, perhaps, which it is wiser and better to decline. There is one which ought always to be accepted: that one is before you today. Jesus Christ is saying, “Come! Come unto Me.”

“Imagine a skilled botanist accompanied by someone like myself who is largely ignorant of botany taking part in a field trip into the Australian bush, with the objective of collecting observable facts about the native flora. It is undoubtedly the case that the botanist will be capable of collecting facts that are far more numerous and discerning than those I am able to observe and formulate, and the reason is clear. The botanist has a more elaborate conceptual scheme to exploit than myself, and that is because he or she knows more botany than I do. A knowledge of botany is a prerequisite for the formulation of the observation statements that might constitute its factual basis. Thus, the recording of observable facts requires more than the reception of the stimuli, in the form of light rays, that impinge on the eye. It requires the knowledge of the appropriate conceptual scheme and how to apply it.”

“It would seem that the scientific revolution involved not just a progressive transformation of scientific theory, but also a transformation in what were considered to be the observable facts!”