In the Review section of the WSJ this weekend in an article by Frank Wilczek, he casually suggested that it shouldn't be so difficult to accept, intuitively, that life and mind emerge from matter, as if we were all just somehow mistaken or deluded about the source of life and mind. Wilczek shared the Nobel … Continue reading Emergent Realities
The times when I am at my quietest is when I am best able to recall the connection of souls, lingering in memory. Perhaps, as a memory, reflecting on the connection seems delightful in a way that is sometimes difficult to see when we are actually experiencing the connection. Gazing upon those we love, and … Continue reading The Connection of Souls
In my previous post, I wrote about author Richard Brautigan, whose success in the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's brought him great notoriety and financial rewards for a time. His tendency to engage in a variety of self-destructive behaviors, and a degree of recklessness in attending to his own well-being, over time, ultimately led … Continue reading Crossroads
"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
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
"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
"The truly sacred attitude toward life is in no sense an escape from the sense of nothingness that assails us when we are left alone with ourselves...the sacred attitude is one which does not recoil from our own inner emptiness, but rather penetrates into it with awe and reverence, and with the awareness of mystery. … Continue reading The Awareness of Mystery
"The individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on the strength of his own resources, to the physical and moral sway of the world. For this man needs the evidence of his own inner, transcendent experience..." --Carl Gustav Jung from one of his last major works, "The Undiscovered Self: Present and … Continue reading Soul, Spirit, Heart, and Mind
John's Consciousness 