Since the very first behaviorally modern humans walked the Earth some 50,000 years ago, there has been an enhanced sophistication in their cognitive talents and an expansion of brainpower brought about by a gradually increased utilization of the human brain’s extraordinary architecture. Fossil evidence of significantly more creative activities, like making tools out of bones, … Continue reading Our Most Important Task
A Teacher’s Dream On the Nature of Time After enduring an intense and startling dream about a difficult personal experience, upon rising it was apparent to me that during the dream, I had acknowledged an important aspect of my own way of being, which has occasionally created challenges for others, due to my … Continue reading A Teacher’s Dream
Paulo Coelho's quote brings us to contemplate the very essence of what it means to be alive and what significance our lives may hold in the big picture. We cannot simply move through life oblivious to the deeper meaning that surely must exist at the foundation of our existence in the physical universe. The importance … Continue reading A Little Parenthesis In Eternity
"If we seek genuine psychological understanding of the human being of our own time, we must know his spiritual history absolutely. We cannot reduce him to mere biological data, since he is not by nature merely biological, but is a product also of spiritual presuppositions." - -Carl Jung from a presentation at the C. G. … Continue reading Body, Mind, Spirit
"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
"Finally we must make use of all the aids which intellect, imagination, sense-perception, and memory afford in order, firstly, to intuit simple propositions distinctly; secondly, to combine correctly (compare) the matters under investigation with what we already know, so that they too may be known; and thirdly, to find out what things should be compared … Continue reading Our Human Powers
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." -- Einstein A recent conversation with a dear friend with an extraordinary gift for … Continue reading The Intimacy of Consciousness
"The transcendental law, Emerson believed, was the 'moral law,' through which man discovers the nature of God, a living spirit...The true nature of life was energetic and fluid; its transcendental unity resulted from the convergence of all forces upon the energetic truth, the heart of the moral law." -- excerpt from The American Tradition in … Continue reading Transcendent Awareness
"Memory performs the impossible for man; holds together past and present, gives continuity and dignity to human life." -- Mark Van Doren, Liberal Education, 1943 "In a large sense, learning and memory are central to our very identity. They make us who we are." -- Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory, 2006 "Has it ever … Continue reading Ancient Mountain of Memory
"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again." - Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Nature." Every year, particularly for those living in regions which experience the full range … Continue reading Consciousness in the World: Memory and the Extended Mind
John's Consciousness 