Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

That is the miracle.

And we just happened to be a bunch of cells stuck together for multicellular life, which is also fantastic.

But I was fascinated with the single-celled organism and how did the universe create a bunch of atoms and molecules that work together in order to become a blueprint for a living entity?

And then that living entity is defined by having a boundary, a cellular membrane that would be semi-permeable.

And things would be outside in the universe of that membrane.

And then that membrane would allow some things in and it would have perception of some things.

So I was very cellular.

I was very anatomical.

So my perception of consciousness was, well, I do believe that a cell has a consciousness.

It's, of course, not like ours, but it's still...

I believe, has an awareness of the difference between itself and that which is outside of itself.

Well, because what is life?

To me, the difference between, you know, in order for a universe to be able to put all the atoms and molecules in the right formation in order to come up with genetic material, and then that genetic material becomes cells.

somehow, which is nothing other than atoms and molecules.

I don't believe that we have the construct of a human body and then consciousness happens to us.

I think that we are a culmination of consciousness and we have different levels of consciousness and different parts of our brain work together in constellations of skill sets that then end up looking like separate consciousnesses.

which also end up looking like different personalities.

So I always had that construct, but I was really interested.

I was working in the lab.

I was teaching and performing neuroanatomy, gross anatomy, which is cadaver lab.