“So many assume the truth is either black or white... It's all evolution or it's totally creation, for example. Reality creates consciousness; consciousness creates reality. Actually truth is inclusive, neither black nor white, nor a shade of grey. Indeed, truth is a multicolored spectrum, a beautiful hologram!” RealityBeautifulSpiritualityBlackWhiteConsciousnessExampleCreationEvolutionTruth IsAssumingShadeGreySpectrumSpiritual AwarenessBlack Or WhiteHolograms Author:Peter Shepherd
“Evolving life must experience a vast range of possibilities, based on environmental histories so unpredictable that no realized route - the pathway to consciousness in the form of Homo sapiens or Little Green Men, for example - can be construed as a highway to heaven, but must be viewed as a tortuous track rutted with uncountable obstacles and festooned with innumerable alternative branches. Any reasonably precise repetition of our earthly route on another planet therefore becomes wildly improbable even in a trillion cases.” MenLittlesFormHeavenConsciousnessCasesExamplePossibilityPlanetsGreenEnvironmentalTrackObstaclesAlternativesEvolveRangeBranchesRoutesPreciseRepetitionUnpredictableHighwaysPathwaysHomo SapiensImprobableEnvironmental History Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs, and the brain built of neurons in the only example we know - may evolve frequently. But if only one origin of life in a million ever leads to consciousness, then Martian bacteria most emphatically do not imply Little Green Men.” IfsKnowsMenMayLittlesEyeFormUniverseBrainConsciousnessMillionsExamplePlanetsBuiltGreenEvolveAppropriateLimbsNeuronsBacteriaOrigin Of LifeMartians Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
“... Simone Weil is a mystery that should keep us all humble, and I need it more than most. Also she's the example of the religious consciousness without a religion which maybe sooner or later I will be able to write about.” NeedsShouldWritingAbleReligiousConsciousnessMysteryExampleHumbleSooner Or Later Book:Collected Works Source: Collected Works
“The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process:When does this feeling occur in the present case?It is when I (for example) turn my attention in a particular way on to my own consciousness, and, astonished, say to myself: THIS is supposed to be produced by a process in the brain!--as it were clutching my forehead.” WayDoeSelfFeelingsTurnsProcessMy OwnAttentionBrainConsciousnessCasesExampleParticularSupposed To BeSelf ConsciousForeheadsSelf Consciousness Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
“The role that theater has placed in enhancing consciousness and moving systems ahead. I think of what South African theater meant for the apartheid movement, for example. I think of what music has meant for so many social movements across time.” ThinkingMovingSocialConsciousnessRolesExampleMovementTheaterSouthSouth AfricaApartheidSocial Movements Author:Saul Williams
“The challenge of elucidating living processes -- including consciousness and all its baggage which we bundle together as 'the human spirit' -- is only one example of a challenge where hard work is paying off and science does not need to accept the false explanations peddled by religions.” NeedsHumansDoeHardTogetherSpiritProcessChallengesConsciousnessAcceptingExampleHard WorkIncludingExplanationHuman SpiritBaggageBundles Author:Peter Atkins
“What happens in our consciousness and minds and bodies is also happening on earth. The more we pollute the earth, for example, the sicker we are.” MindBodyHappensEarthConsciousnessExampleHappeningsMind And Body Author:Eyvind Kang
“If I use the word consciousness, in our lab, in our institute, what we mean is the special quality of mind, the special features that exist in the mind, that permit us to know, for example, that we, ourselves, exist, and that things exist around us.” IfsKnowsMindMeanUseConsciousnessQualitySpecialExampleFeaturesPermitInstituteLabs Author:Antonio Damasio
“Isn't this the perfect image of the noblest selflessness, and thereby presents an example and a model? It should be inspiring: like them, we are the units of a great social body, like them, we can serve and contemplate death with equanimity, subordinating our individual consciousness to collective consciousness.” ShouldBodyIndividualSocialPerfectConsciousnessSacrificeExampleModelsCollectivesContemplatingUnitsSelflessnessEquanimityCollective Consciousness Author:Leo Errera