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

A mind is so closely shaped by the body and destined to serve it that only one mind could possibly arise in it. No body, never mind.

We're seeing it the same way, we're hearing the same way, we have the same conception of the situation. And so, for all purposes, we are operating with a very similar perception.

What happens [in a coma] is that you lose the grounding of the self, you no longer have access to any feeling of your own existence.

Emotion consists of a very well orchestrated set of alterations in the body that has, as a general purpose, making life more survivable by taking care of a danger, of taking care of an opportunity, either/or, or something in between.

Scott Fitzgerald said famously that "he who invented consciousness would have a lot to be blamed for." But he also forgot that without consciousness, he would have no access to true happiness or even the possibility of transcendence.

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