We are not passive exhibitors of visual or auditory or tactile images. We have selves. We have a Me that is automatically present in our minds right now.

The problem that we, as living organisms, face - and not we only, humans, but any living organism faces - is the management of life.

When you deal with something like compassion for physical pain, which we know is very, very old in evolution - we can find evidence for it in nonhuman species - the brain processes it at a faster speed. Compassion for mental pain took many seconds longer.

But whether we want to do it because we want to have people to have a different idea of who we are or not, we do it naturally. So the way we construct our narrative is different from the way we constructed it a year ago. The difference is maybe very small or it may be huge.

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.

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

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.