Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
"The unreal disguise of consciousness serves only to emphasize to me the existence of the undisguised unconsciousness." Fernando Pessoa wrote this in The Book of Disquiet as he reflected on the way that people thought about and moved through the world around him. What Pessoa noted is that we act and behave as though we are … Continue reading The Undisguised Consciousness
In a diary entry dated 04/08/1931 in Fernando Pessoa's posthumously published book The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa writes, "For us everything lies in our concept of the world; changing our concept of the world means changing our world, that is, the world itself, since it will never be anything other than how we perceive it." … Continue reading Our Perceptions of the World
"Much harm is done by a single case of indulgence or greed," Seneca wrote in a letter saved in the book Letters From a Stoic, "the familiar friend, if he be luxurious, weakens and softens us imperceptibly; the neighbor, if he be rich, rouses our covetousness; the companion, if he be slanderous, rubs off some … Continue reading You Are Not Just Yourself
I listened to an episode of the After On podcast this last week, and the guest, Dr. Don Hoffman, suggested that our brains did not evolve to help us understand reality, but evolved to help us survive, which often did not require that our ancestors have the most accurate view of reality but instead had … Continue reading Selective Attention