Radio Telescopes - ESO - Chile There wasn't any reason in particular to step out into the mitigated darkness of late evening, other than to follow an urge to move past the sometimes bewildering blur my life has been of late. Somehow, as I turned my gaze to the canopy of stars in the cool … Continue reading Victory over Disharmony
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 Kangaroo, … Continue reading Nostalgia and the Future of Humanity
I wrote the following in response to a WordPress blog entry noted at the bottom of this entry: It's always interesting to me when anyone tries to distinguish between terms which are interdependent, and which require each other in order to describe each other. What we describe as "information" and what we describe as "knowledge," … Continue reading Information versus knowledge.
Back in June of last year, I began my first serious reading of “Out of Our Heads,” by Alva Noë, and immediately I started to feel a high degree of admiration for his courage in addressing the philosophical, scientific, and biological approach to understanding human consciousness. His premise that “We are not our brains,” strikes … Continue reading Are We “Out of Our Heads?”
As the ten year mark arrives of the awful tragedy of the loss of so many lives on September 11, 2001 in America, so much is being written about it and broadcast in the 21st century media about that terrible day, that it seems almost impossible that any sort of balanced perspective might result from … Continue reading Looking Closely at Our Life On Earth and the Importance of Perspective
Having just returned from three days and nights in the Belleplain State Forest, the return to civilization always seems to find me rejuvenated in spirit, but also oddly melancholy. The trip was a welcome break from the relentless daily routines that sustain me as I write, and the moments of blissful silence communing with only … Continue reading Spirits in the Woods
Contemplating recent comments about what it means to be a conscious human, I began to consider what really distinguishes us from all the other inhabitants of our planet. There are some distinctively human traits to be sure, but it seems more like a combination of several important capacities and foundational characteristics that sets us apart. … Continue reading Blossoming of Consciousness
In an article in the April-June 2009 issue of Scientific American Mind called "The Power of Symmetry," by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Diane Rogers-Ramachandran, we learned that through our own subjective experience of visual stimuli, we can verify the brain's tendency to impose symmetry on what we see, and through a deliberate method of presenting … Continue reading The Illusions of Neuroscience and the Certainty of the Mysterious
When the stage collapsed at the Indiana State Fair last week, people panicked and ran initially, but once the immediate danger had passed, a hundred or so rushed toward the scene to help. Amazing pictures of people trying to lift the fallen structure, and stories of heroic efforts to assist those who were injured gave … Continue reading Little Girl Saved, Little Girl Lost-Triumph of the Human Spirit
In August 1961, a barbed-wire barrier was erected between East and West Berlin. A few days later, workers started building a concrete block wall. Residents of East were no longer allowed to enter the West. The "Iron Curtain" that Winston Churchill had spoken about in a 1946 speech had now come to fruition. (MSN homepage … Continue reading East Germany and the Human Spirit
John's Consciousness 