All of that is constantly operating when you not only learn, but when you recall. But as you recall in a different light, the weights with which something is more probably going to be or not recalled on the next instance, are going to be changed. So you're constantly changing the way, for instance, synapses are going to fire very easily or not so easily.

I think it's possible to a certain extent to make those comparisons. The problem is the detail with which the comparison can be made. Of course, the first place to make such a comparison would be to ask for a testimony from different people and have people report on what they experience.

There is no such thing as a disembodied mind. The mind is implanted in the brain, and the brain is implanted in the body.

How can you have this reference point, this stability, that is required to maintain the continuity of selves day after day?

Consciousness begins when brains acquire the power, the simple power I must add, of telling a story.

The autobiographical self is built on the basis of past memories and memories of the plans that we have made; it's the lived past and the anticipated future.

There's that effect that is very physical, very down there at the synaptic level, which really means microscopic cellular level, but also molecular level, because all of those structures are operating on an electrochemical basis and so the changes there are very important.