We can be more or less conscious when you create grades of focus on a subject that is flowing in our stream of consciousness.

The autobiographical self has prompted extended memory, reasoning, imagination, creativity and language. And out of that came the instruments of culture - religions, justice, trade, the arts, science, technology.

For pure joy, I look at a small painting by Arbit Blatas. An ocean liner is at the center of the composition, perhaps ready to depart. It holds the promise of discovery.

It's very interesting to think about the distinction with mind, which I just made in very general terms, but it can be made more profound when we think that there are many species, many creatures on earth that are very likely to have a mind, but are very unlikely to have a consciousness in the sense that you and I have.

Feeling of an emotion is a process that is distinct from having the emotion in the first place. So it helps to understand what is an emotion, what is a feeling, we need to understand what is an emotion.

There are things in our lives that take up an enormous importance and that become very dominant effects in our biography. And that comes out of a variety of reasons, but fundamentally comes out of how that particular experience connects with your effective systems of response.

Although when you look at people that say, from the same culture, roughly the same age, and not very difference intelligence, and you make a lot of detailed questions about the experiences of say colors, situations, and so on, you'll get very similar answers.