"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 Recent reading and contemplation have brought up a number of serious reconsiderations of … Continue reading To Everything…There is a Season
“If you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you? Until this decade, that question was the stuff of science fiction, but now experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics suggest it will indeed be possible.” --excerpt from film promo Throughout the tumultuous days in the recent past, I never … Continue reading New Year Ahead: Artificial Immortality
In this month's edition of my Consciousness Video Series, I put together a review of a recent book by Dr. Alan Lightman called, "The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality In The Age of Science." In a wonderful development, my review of Dr. Lightman's book, "A Sense of the Mysterious," apparently caught his eye, and he sent me … Continue reading Consciousness Video Series: Episode 11: The Transcendent Brain Reply to Alan Lightman +plus: A Porch With A View
I am more aware than ever of my fragility and my mortality. Lately, everything I see and take in reminds me that, as time progresses, there may now be much less time to waste, and yet sometimes what to a casual observer may seem like wasting time is actually an effort to completely immerse myself … Continue reading Reminiscing and Reverie
One of the advantages of accumulating a fair number of decades of life experience, still reasonably intact in the main, is the ability to reflect upon and seriously consider what one has endured and accomplished over the course of those decades. As I now traverse the early days of my eighth decade, I suppose that … Continue reading Living Through and Through
The subjective experience of consciousness, as all functionally cognitive people know it, is in a constant state of flux. The person you were yesterday when you experienced your first ride on a roller coaster or jumped out of a perfectly good airplane for the first time is not the same person you are today, having … Continue reading Spiritual Resonance
Being an individual on our planet, in our solar system, in our galaxy, in this universe, is only one component of our reality, not the whole story. There is a comprehensive wholeness to the universe—to reality—to existence—within that universe, which consists of physical matter, governed by physical laws, as well as a variety of unknowns … Continue reading Beyond the Material World: A Non-Physical Reality?
Recent reading and investigation have inspired a wave of inner reflection and contemplation about the nature of my personal experience as a human person, and what exactly the point of it all might be in the first place. Clearly, the specific details of my personal life—the epoch into which my arrival on this planet took … Continue reading Life Events and My Personal Writing Space
The debate has raged for centuries. Ancient religions have wrestled with the notion of the existence of a separate “individual self or soul,” which might actually be a mental illusion (Maya) blocking our efforts to eventually attain true enlightenment. According to the Eastern philosophical view, release from the relentless cycles of Samsara (Moksha) requires abandonment … Continue reading Taking Care of Your “Self?”
"In active contemplation, a person becomes able to live with themselves. They learn to be at home with their own thoughts. They become, to a greater and greater degree, independent of exterior supports. Their mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside themselves--diversions, entertainments, conversations, business--but by their own constructive activity...thinking their own … Continue reading Our Own Inner Truth
John's Consciousness 