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.

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

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.

I continue to be fascinated by the fact that feelings are not just the shady side of reason but that they help us to reach decisions as well.

Emotion operates, very often when you think about how you react to the world, you know, something is happening to you, you're simply going along and you're being confronted by different things, not necessarily very important or significance for your ultimate life, but you are constantly reacting to the world.

In the heart of consciousness is subjectivity, this sense of having a self that observes one's own organism and the world around that organism. That is really the heart of consciousness.

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.