"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."--Paulo Coelho "Strange things blow in through my window on the wings … Continue reading The Flow of Destiny
"There is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires." -- Henry David Thoreau from his essay, "Walking," 1862 Once again, after a long hiatus due to the complications of modern life, I had the privilege of traveling into nature's cathedral, unwinding from the relentless demands of daily life, and drifting into … Continue reading September Journey
August has nearly flown by this year, due in large part to the rapid pace of life these days for me, but also by virtue of the daunting blank page that has been staring back at me these past several months. There have been lots of ideas and thoughts and musings percolating in my heart … Continue reading August Musings
"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
Some of the most personally compelling spiritual experiences of my life took place long before I could even identify them as being spiritual. My earliest memories of childhood were punctuated periodically with moments of a kind of "unconscious awareness" of energies or forces beyond my direct experience of the world; occasionally precipitating unplanned and unexpected … Continue reading Avenues to Spirituality
"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
Memory Is Feeling Some months ago, I wrote a few brief remarks to share for the memorial service marking one year since my Mom's passing, and while preparing to deliver the remarks, I recorded myself reciting them in order to review them before the service. The first attempts with just my voice were helpful in … Continue reading Memory is Feeling
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
John's Consciousness 