The motives by which we act are inscribed in our intimate structure as mammals, as hunters, as social beings: reason illuminates these connections, it does not generate them. We are not, in the first place, reasoning beings. We may perhaps become so, more or less, in the second. In the first instance, we are driven by a thirst for life, by hunger, by the need to love, by the instinct to find our place in human society... The second instance does not even exist without the first. Reason arbitrates between instincts but uses the very same instincts as primary criteria in its arbitration.

Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli

Italian physicist and author

3 May 1956 —

The Order of Time

Details:

Time of publication: October 29, 2018

Length: 592 characters

Favorited by: 1 member

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