fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism.

A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act of the will.

Materialism is incomplete even as a theory of the physical world, since the physical world includes conscious organisms among its most striking occupants.

The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively.

Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any special status.