Quotes About Consciousness

I think that consciousness has always been the most important topic in the philosophy of mind, and one of the most important topics in cognitive science as a whole, but it had been surprisingly neglected in recent years.

I think that, if there are topics that are just on people's minds, things manifest into reality out of the sort of global consciousness of being aware of those topics.

The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to.

To me, I think people who don't think it's a big deal to toss a plastic bottle in the garbage are not only being irresponsible, but I think they're being disrespectful of all the other humans on earth.

When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation - which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased - only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.

Scientology is the study of knowingness. It increases one's knowingness, but if a man were totally aware of what was going on around him, he would find it relatively simple to handle any outnesses in that.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

Right now, the machine keeps us totally busy. If you don't react against it, you'll end up letting yourself go and become the perfect consumer. That's what they want.

Not only is fur cruel, it's also totally gross. I mean, who wants to wear the skin of an abused animal? Not me!

Once shoppers become empowered, we will facilitate industries thinking in completely new terms; for example, making products that are totally biodegradable.

We could be living in a computer simulation like in The Matrix, and the true external reality could be something very different than we suppose.

should also worry that he is being dreamed. (In the Hindu Vedanta tradition, all the world is a dream of Brahma.)

Are you sure you're not a Boltzmann Brain? Or at least, do you know your local environment didn't recently fluctuate into existence? How do you know you're

treat measurements as fundamental, wave functions collapse when they are observed, don't ask questions about what's going on behind the scenes

Our best theories of people, presented on their own terms and without reference to underlying particles and forces, leave plenty of room for human choice.

We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it.

As Albert Einstein said: The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

A dog doesn't understand mathematics, but that doesn't mean mathematics doesn't exist.

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamed of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" - Chuang Tzu

I think, therefore I am... not related to you.

They say that we come from apes and maybe it is the residing animal in us that knows things deep down that we almost don't realise we know.

This is how most people live: alive, but not conscious; conscious but not aware; aware, but intermittently.

Es war, wie Alina mir einmal erklärt hatte: Es sind nicht die Augen, mit denen wir die Welt erkennen. Es sind unsere Gefühle, die uns sehen lassen. Und meine Gefühle spürten in diesem Moment die Anwesenheit des Todes.