Nietzsche on Consciousness

[elimisteve]

"One thinks that [consciousness] constitutes the kernel of man; what is abiding, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him! One takes consciousness for a determinate magnitude! One denies it growth and its intermittences! One takes it for the "unity of the organism"!- This ridiculous overestimation and misunderstanding of consciousness has the very useful consequence that it prevents an all too fast development of consciousness. Believing that they possess consciousness, men have not exerted themselves very much to acquire it-and things haven't changed much in this respect! To this day the task of incorporating knowledge and making it instinctive is only beginning to dawn on the human eye and is not yet clearly discernible-a task that is seen only by those who have comprehended that so far we have incorporated only our errors and that all our consciousness relates to errors!"
--Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book 1 'Verse' 11