The actual quote from Dostoevsky’s “Notes From The Underground,” goes as follows: “And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know … Continue reading Origins of Consciousness
As is often the case with the approach of the autumn season, I can strongly sense that change is coming, and it’s not just in the dazzling panoply of autumn leaves. My spirit—my soul—the very essence of my existence—is rising. I feel its approach; I sense its immanent arrival; and I welcome it. I understand … Continue reading Auguries of Autumn
Some years ago, I photographed Roy Rogers at a meet and greet in New Jersey. A friend of mine recently forwarded an email which reflected on some of the television characters from our childhood years, like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Sky King and Superman and Sgt. Friday, Captain … Continue reading Nostalgia and the Future of Humanity
The only means of strengthening one's intelligence is to make up one's mind about nothing-- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. - John Keats (1795 - 1821) No matter what aspect of conscious experience we wish to consider, whether it involves a clearly temporal action or event like wrestling an alligator, … Continue reading The Dynamics of Consciousness
Life moves forward always. It swirls and slides and strikes at the very heart of me. At this point in my life, having accumulated more than sixty years of living memory, looking back, for me, is long. For at least that long, I have held on to some specific recollections of my early days. Of … Continue reading Memories and Humble Beginnings
There have been a number of indications in my daily experience recently which seem to point toward an opening to a new direction in my ongoing pursuit to begin to unravel some of the mystery presented by our struggle to understand the nature and character of our subjective experience of human consciousness, and to present … Continue reading Just A Coincidence?
Digging through the information stored in my brain in memory is sometimes like conducting an archival search of historical records. Even though, according to modern neuroscience, reviewing our memories is not usually a precise recreation of those remembered moments, stored over the years in which they were relegated to long-term status, we actually reassemble the … Continue reading The Archives In My Brain and In My Heart
Daffodils announce the Season For those of us on the East Coast of the USA, it finally is beginning to feel like Spring! The recent rise in daily temperatures to the more seasonable level found me searching for a Spring theme to share with my readers here and in the process, I came upon a … Continue reading Finally…Spring!
In the introduction to Jonah Lehrer's "Proust Was a Neuroscientist," he sums up the problem with only considering brain physiology as the means to come to terms with consciousness: "Scientists describe our brain in terms of its physical details; they say we are nothing but a loom of electrical cells and synaptic spaces. What science … Continue reading Neuroscience and the Arts
This gem of a book struck me as one of the best examples of a scientist who is unafraid of stretching the boundaries of how to view the workings of our mind. How easily she glides between science and metaphor and yet remains solidly in the science camp as a rule! Her discussion in chapter … Continue reading An Alchemy of Mind
John's Consciousness 