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
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?
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
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 Recent reading and contemplation have brought up a number of serious reconsiderations of … Continue reading To Everything…There is a Season
“If you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you? Until this decade, that question was the stuff of science fiction, but now experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics suggest it will indeed be possible.” --excerpt from film promo Throughout the tumultuous days in the recent past, I never … Continue reading New Year Ahead: Artificial Immortality
In this month's edition of my Consciousness Video Series, I put together a review of a recent book by Dr. Alan Lightman called, "The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality In The Age of Science." In a wonderful development, my review of Dr. Lightman's book, "A Sense of the Mysterious," apparently caught his eye, and he sent me … Continue reading Consciousness Video Series: Episode 11: The Transcendent Brain Reply to Alan Lightman +plus: A Porch With A View
I am continually searching for my own personal and spiritual place; for a return to the path of the spirit. I feel strongly that all of my efforts generally find me heading in that direction, but I can’t honestly say I know for certain, at least not at all times, just which direction I should … Continue reading The True Spiritual Path
"It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery has conveyed a survival advantage...provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search...and so would not lead us to … Continue reading Reason and Intuition
What is the value of positing a theory of consciousness which is beyond our current capacity to demonstrate empirically? Even supposing that the full explanation behind the extraordinarily vivid and deeply personal subjective experience we enjoy as living creatures, includes aspects or energies that cannot be verified objectively by any known scientific process, does not … Continue reading A Leap of Faith
John's Consciousness 