When the critical intellect looks at anything carefully, it vanishes. [...] The reason is, of course, that ''things'' exist only relatively - for a p… - Alan Watts
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When the critical intellect looks at anything carefully, it vanishes. [...] The reason is, of course, that ''things'' exist only relatively - for a point of view or for convenience of description. Thus when we inspect any unit more closely we find that its structure is more complex and more differentiated than we had supposed. Its variety comes to impress us more than its unity. This is why there is something of the spirit of debunking in all scholarship and scientific inquiry.
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.
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Wikimedia Commons, The University of Vermont Alumni Magazine vol. 39 no. 01, p. 22. (Public domain / CC0)
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Alan Wilson Watts
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Alan W. Watts
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: The University of Vermont Alumni Magazine vol. 39 no. 01, p. 22.. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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Thought and science are therefore raising problems which their terms of study can never answer, many of which are doubtless problems only for thought. The trisection of an angle is similarly an insoluble problem only for compass and straight-edge construction, and Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise so long as their progress is considered piecemeal, endlessly having the distance between them. However, as it is not Achilles but the method of measurement which fails to catch up with the tortoise, so it is not man but his method of thought which fails to find fulfillment in experience.
The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it.
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