As the storm began on Friday...there was only a hint of what was to come... This morning...the world looked remarkably different on the surface...but underneath it all...the foundation remains the same... Upon waking this morning...the ferocity of the winter storm had clouded my view out the bedroom window... ...But it also revealed a hidden intricate … Continue reading Winter’s Withering Wallop
...the very observation is an act of creation, and that consciousness is doing the creating. ~ Gregg Braden Opening up the front door this morning brought the image above into consciousness for me, and now for all of my visitors and readers here at John's Consciousness. The first snow of 2016 may seem like an … Continue reading Winter’s Promise of Spring
The times when I am at my quietest is when I am best able to recall the connection of souls, lingering in memory. Perhaps, as a memory, reflecting on the connection seems delightful in a way that is sometimes difficult to see when we are actually experiencing the connection. Gazing upon those we love, and … Continue reading The Connection of Souls
According to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, intelligence is defined as: noun 1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc. 2. manifestation of a high mental capacity: "He writes with intelligence and wit." In a recent study conducted at the University of Western Ontario, researchers … Continue reading An Artificial Version of Human Intelligence?
"My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’, … Continue reading Oliver Sacks – 1933-2015
"The working hypothesis of this book is that consciousness emerges from neuronal features of the brain. Understanding the material basis of consciousness is unlikely to require any exotic new physics, but rather a much deeper appreciation of how highly interconnected networks of a large number of heterogeneous neurons work. The abilities of coalitions of neurons … Continue reading Quest for Consciousness
The evolution of life on our planet has produced an extraordinary variety and diversity of species, and the paths followed by many of the branches on the tree of life have held sway for millions of years before ending completely or splitting off into whole new species. The ability of each branch to continue into … Continue reading Evolution of Cognition
http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/239152/summer-love-beach-waves "Understand that the body is merely the foam of a wave, the shadow of a shadow." -- Buddha Eric Kandel, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons in 2000, in his book, "In Search of Memory," emphasized the "biology of … Continue reading The Foam of a Wave
"Many theories of the origin of life have been proposed, but since it's hard to prove or disprove them, no fully accepted theory exists," --Diana Northup, a cave biologist at the University of New Mexico. Robert Shapiro, a chemist at New York University thinks "...life started with molecules that were smaller and less complex than … Continue reading In The Beginning
Michelangelo Buonarroti - The Dream of Human Life Writing about "Life," or rendering artistically the everyday scenes of our temporal existence goes on all the time in every culture and it has become commonplace in our time to read about or to see the results of those efforts everywhere we go. Actually "living our lives" … Continue reading The Fulfillment of Life
