Quotes About Consciousness

the control of consciousness determines the quality of life

Wir stehen immer kurz davor zu leben«, sagte Ralph Waldo Emerson, »aber wir leben nie.«

As a result, one of the most universal and distinctive features of optimal experience takes place: people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.

that the control of consciousness determines the quality of life

This simple truth—that the control of consciousness determines the quality of life—has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist.

The last great attempt to free consciousness from the domination of impulses and social controls was psychoanalysis; as Freud pointed out, the two tyrants that fought for control over the mind were the id and the superego, the first a servant of the genes, the second a lackey of society—both representing the "Other." Opposed to them was the ego, which stood for the genuine needs of the self connected to its concrete environment.

Whenever information disrupts consciousness by threatening its goals we have a condition of inner disorder, or psychic entropy, a disorganisation of the self that impairs its effectiveness. Prolonged experiences of this kind can weaken the self to the point that it is no longer able to invest attention and pursue its goals.

The "battle" is not really against the self, but against the entropy that brings disorder to consciousness. It is really a battle for the self; it is a struggle for establishing control over attention.

How can it help a person learn to rid himself of anxieties and fears and thus become free of the controls of society, whose rewards he can now take or leave? As suggested before, the way is through control over consciousness, which in turn leads to control over the quality of experience. Any small gain in that direction will make life more rich, more enjoyable, more meaningful.

But consciousness cannot be expanded; all we can do is shuffle its content, which gives us the impression of having broadened it somehow. The price of most artificially induced alterations, however, is that we lose control over that very consciousness we were supposed to expand. Mimicry

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to be.

A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening "outside," just by changing the contents of consciousness. We

The function of consciousness is to represent information about what is happening outside and inside the organism in such a way that it can be evaluated and acted upon by the body.

Since what we experience is reality, as far as we are concerned, we can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.

Observing, recording, and preserving the memory of both the large and small events of life is one of the oldest and most satisfying ways to bring order to consciousness.

consciousness is not a strictly linear system, but one in which circular causality obtains. Attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it.

what we call religion is actually the oldest and most ambitious attempt to create order in consciousness.

A person who is healthy, rich, strong, and powerful has no greater odds of being in control of his consciousness than one who is sickly, poor, weak, and oppressed. The difference between someone who enjoys life and someone who is overwhelmed by it is a product of a combination of such external factors and the way a person has come to interpret them—that is, whether he sees challenges as threats or as opportunities for action.

In any case, an individual can experience only so much. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and the quality of life.

Information enters consciousness either because we intend to focus attention on it or as a result of attentional habits based on biological or social instructions.

How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how to the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. [...] To do that we must learn to achieve mastery over consciousness itself.

Pleasure is a feeling of contentment that one achieves whenever information in consciousness says that expectations set by biological programs or by social conditioning have been met.

Having a record of the past can make a great contribution to the quality of life. It frees us from the tyranny of the present, and makes it possible for consciousness to revisit former times.

el más alto bien, que llamaba alegría, y frecuentemente confianza, es una mente desprovista de temor». En otras palabras, disfrutó de la vida porque había aprendido a controlar su conciencia. Demócrito no fue ni el primer ni el último pensador que se perdió en el flujo de la mente. Frecuentemente