Quotes About Consciousness

The brain builds a version of the universe and projects this version of the universe like a bubble all around us. So I can say with some certainty, 'I think therefore I am.' But I cannot say, 'You think therefore you are,' because you are within my perceptual bubble.

You can imagine a soul as being a detailed, elaborate pattern that exists very clearly in one brain. When a person dies, the original is no longer around. But there are other versions of it in other people's brains. It's a less detailed copy, it's coarse-grained.

Mike and I are always drawn to the idea that there is light and dark inside every being, rather than the old two-dimensional trope of good versus evil.

I can know what Brian Cage is doing before he's doing it because he's doing me. I've been facing the man in the mirror my entire life. That's been my hardest battle is the one where it's me versus me.

We're blind to our blindness. We have very little idea of how little we know. We're not designed to know how little we know.

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it's beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.

Can the mind see the truth of its own incapacity to know the unknown? Surely if I see very clearly that my mind cannot know the unknown, there is absolute quietness.

I've always been very conscious of who I am.

This may sound strange, but at a very early age, at around 3, I was aware that I was smarter than the other kids.

The notion that war forever separates veterans from the rest of mankind has been long embedded in our collective consciousness.

We are all part of a vibrant, energetic life force and my overwhelming belief is that the mind survives outside of the body and it survives and works outside the body.

I think in metaphysical terms, I would call that increasing the speed of the vibration of life.

Your brain sends out vibrations all the time, and your thoughts affect your life and other people's. They pick up these thoughts and get changed by them. That's why, say, a pacifist gets caught up in a riot situation. It's a field of vibrations - you can 'feel' someone else's thoughts when close to them.

As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.

Victims don't want to know they're victims. I guess that's just victim psychology: if you don't know about it, it's not really happening.

It makes a big difference to recycle. It makes a big difference to use recycled products. It makes a big difference to reuse things, to not use the paper cup - and each time you do, that's a victory.

If the war has faded into history, democracy's defeat in Vietnam has left deep marks in the consciousness of both nations.

My first professional acting job was in 'Hair' during the Vietnam War. So I think I've always been drawn to projects with a social conscience.

I can say, 'Well, I'm a male. I'm a male human. I'm a medical doctor. I'm an author...' If I go to a religious point of view, I will say, 'I am a soul. I am a spirit.' If I go into science, I will say, 'I am energy. I am light.' But the truth is I have no idea what I am.

Museums are managers of consciousness. They give us an interpretation of history, of how to view the world and locate ourselves in it. They are, if you want to put it in positive terms, great educational institutions. If you want to put it in negative terms, they are propaganda machines.

Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.

Some people take the view that the universe is simply there, and it runs along - it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.

Looking at the world from other species' points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance. You suddenly realize that consciousness - which we value and we consider the crowning achievement of nature, human consciousness - is really just another set of tools for getting along in the world.

We have a very narrow view of what is going on.