Driving all day to our destination for Thanksgiving dinner this year gave me some additional time for contemplation, and a chance to review some material that has been on the back burner. There haven't been many such opportunities recently, and I know that my writing has suffered from my inability to focus well these past … Continue reading Making Progress Slowly
As I write, Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the East Coast of the US, and is expected to make landfall plus or minus 50 miles from our home. We have spent most of the day in preparation for punishing winds, torrential rain, and possible flooding. The storm is approximately 900 miles wide and will … Continue reading Hurricanes and Hope
I have felt such a broad range of emotions of late, and have switched between experiences of different key elements so frequently, that I have been unable to focus very clearly on any one matter for very long. The crux of the matter seems to be that the disparate elements vying for my attention all … Continue reading Consciousness in the World: Finding Our Way
Sitting beside my brother's bed in the early morning hours, watching him sleep peacefully, I came across this image of earth from space, and it occurred to me how remarkable it is that life as we know it exists at all. We rarely contemplate the larger implications of life on earth since we are immersed … Continue reading Life Ebbs and Flows
Recently, I posted about the development of consciousness in our distant human ancestors, and the parallels between that development and how our modern children develop. I wasn't expecting to be considering how there might be a parallel to be drawn from the gradual loss of access to consciousness as a consequence of the debilitating effects … Continue reading Consciousness in the World: Between Life and Death
All things being equal, our common sense notions of the world in which we exist can be said to represent a version of reality that is reasonably reliable as a general standard for determining our individual status within it. In spite of the fact that our perceptions of the world are a product of a … Continue reading Appearance and Reality
As a new life begins, in the swirling chaos and excitement of birth, the immediate impact on the consciousness of the parents and extended families is profound, although we often don't recognize the radiant waves that ripple across our immediate world of consciousness, since we are caught up in the web of newborn childcare and … Continue reading Consciousness in the World: A Thirty Something Son
"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and … Continue reading Consciousness in the World: Connections
As an attentive consumer of various scientific publications available in the world today, particularly those concerning the science of mind and brain, while the information is often intriguing and illuminating in regards to how the physiology of the brain results in the extraordinary variety of symptoms, characteristics, and behavior of modern humans, what is often … Continue reading A World of Consciousness and Consciousness in the World
shaper of dreams.by ~Sea-of-Ice http://sea-of-ice.deviantart.com/gallery/ In response to one of my recent posts, my good friend and fellow blogger from The Heartbreak of Invention, (http://patricemj.wordpress.com/) posed several important questions regarding some of the issues surrounding the nature of human consciousness. While these issues are the subject of intense study over a number of neuroscientific disciplines, … Continue reading The Nature of Consciousness
John's Consciousness 