Quotes About Consciousness

There is basic pain in being sentient, in being witness to the phenomenal existence of the world without any answer as to why.

From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. The only trust fund I have is this story, and unlike a prudent Wasp, I'm dipping into principal, spending it all.

Continuu sa cred ca aceste semne negre facute pe hartia alba poarta cea mai adanca semnificatie, ca daca o tin tot asa cu scrisul, as putea reusi sa prind curcubeul constiintei intr-un borcan.

Csak onnan tudhatjuk, hogy igaz, hogy mindketten ugyanazt álmodtuk. EttÅ'l lesz valóság. A valóság is álom, csak mindenki egyszerre álmodja.

A mente se autoedita. A mente se dá retoques. Habitar um corpo é diferente de estar fora dele. De fora, a gente pode olhar, inspecionar, comparar.

When Annie flirted she didn't always admit to herself that she was flirting. Sometimes she preferred to suspend her mental faculties so that she could flirt, as it were, without her mind watching. It was as if her body and mind separated, her body stepping behind a screen to remove its clothing while her mind, on the other side of the screen, paid no attention.".

But maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar.

The only way we know it's true is that we both dreamed it. That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together.

Mas talvez as Pulseiras de Pingentes soubessem mais da vida do que eu. Desde muito cedo compreendiam que o mundo dava pouco valor aos livros, e por isso não gastavam seu tempo com eles. Ao passo que eu, até hoje, persisto na crença de que essas manchas pretas sobre papel branco têm a maior importância, e que, se seguir escrevendo, talvez consiga capturar num pote o arco-íris da consciência.

Cecilia appeared in our consciousness at odd moments, most often as we were just waking up, or staring out a car-pool window streaked with rain—she rose up in her wedding dress, muddy with the afterlife, but then a horn would honk, or our radio alarms would unleash a popular song, and we snapped back to reality.

We are not passive recipients but active participants in our own process of perception (Nancy Kanwisher)

To assert a belief in free will is to accept responsibility for our actions and to recognize the mind as "more or less a first cause, an unmoved mover," as the theorist Thomas Clark says: it is to hold the view that "we could have willed otherwise in the radical sense that the will is not the explicable or predictable result of any set of conditions that held at the moment of choice.

If there is to be a resolution to the mystery of how mind relates to matter, it will emerge from explaining the data of the human brain in terms of these laws-laws capable of giving rise to a very different view of the causal efficacy of human consciousness. Quantum mechanics makes it feasible to describe a mind capable of exerting effects that neurons alone cannot.

Study after study has indeed found a primary role for the prefrontal cortex in freely performed volitional activity. "That aspect of free will which is concerned with the voluntary selection of one action rather than another critically depends upon the normal functioning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and associated brain regions," Sean Spence and Chris Frith concluded in "The Volitional Brain.

T]he cascade of discoveries in neuroscience and genetics has created an image of individuals as automata, slaves to their genes or neurotransmitters, with no more free will than a child's windup toy.

For quantum theory elegantly explains how our actions are shaped by our will, and our will by our attention, which is not strictly controlled by any known law of nature.

The role of observation in quantum physics cannot be emphasized too strongly. In classical physics, observed systems have an existence independent of the mind that observes and probes them. In quantum physics, however, only through an act of observation does a physical quantity come to have an actual value.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. —T. H. Key Of

In other words, what Libet was saying is that you really can't decide or determine what will initially grab your attention—your brain does. However, his research also indicated that once your initial attention is grabbed, you can determine whether you keep your attention focused on that object (and act on it) or veto it based on the principle of Free Won't.

If there is a single fundamental underpinning in the intellectual tradition of Western scientific thought, it is arguably that there exists an unbridgeable divide between the world of mind and the world of matter, between the realm of the material (which is definitely real) and the realm of the immaterial (which, according to the conventions of science, is likely illusory).

I never sleep on the plane. I have to be awake and using my mind power to keep it in the air

If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

As we said, consciousness is everything. Even now, acknowledging inequality begs one to do something about it--and that is a daunting, albeit righteous, responsibility.

Algunas personas dicen que vivir el momento produce cambios en sus percepciones visuales. Ellos ven las imágenes con mayor nitidez; los colores parecen más vibrantes. Sus acciones e incluso aquellas de las personas que lo rodean contienen mayor significado.