Eastern Bluebirds, Photo by Danny Brown
Mountain Bluebird, Photo by Diane Taylor
Eastern Bluebird, Photo by Jim Chagares
Western Bluebird, Photo by Antonino Pera
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Never Give Up on Yourself
Compassionate action has to start with ourselves. It is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others. If we are willing to stand fully in our own shoes and never give up on ourselves, then we will be able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and never give up on them. ~ Pema Chodron
Monday, June 27, 2016
Our Greatest Strength
Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our Heart.
~ Rumi
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Be the Candle
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
~ Edith Wharton
Shine Like a Sun
Be grateful for your life ...
and your face will come to shine like a sun,
and everyone who sees it will
be made glad and peaceful.
~ Rumi
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
A Trusted Friend is the Best Relative
"Health is the greatest gift,
contentment is the greatest wealth,
a trusted friend is the best relative,
Nibbana is the greatest bliss."
~ The Buddha (Dhammapada)
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
- Rumi
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Strawberry Moon
Full June Strawberry Moon taken over western China at a height of about 240 miles traveling at 17,150 mph .
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Monday, June 20, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Mainly Mozart
The piano soloist did an encore during which I pulled out my phone and did a quick SoundHound search to find out it was Rachmaninoff Prelude No. 5. Brilliantly done!
The US Grant Hotel
Consciousness
In 2008, neuroscientist Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Sleep and Consciousness put forward his “integrated information theory,” which is currently accepted as one of the most compelling explanations about what consciousness is.
One of the central claims of the theory is that, for consciousness to exist, it must have “cause-effect” power on itself.
Neurologist Melanie Boly, a resident at UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health who has worked with Tononi, explains that for anything to exist, it must be able to have an effect; it must be able to make some small difference to something else.
“Consciousness exists for itself and by itself,” says Boly. “Thus it should have cause and effect on itself.”
Boly is currently working with other researchers to develop a mathematical framework to test the predictions of integrated information theory.
But she points out that, long before the explanation of consciousness was put forward in such a scientifically rigorous form, the philosopher Plato expressed the idea that for something to exist, it must capable of having an effect. And so consciousness (or “being,” as Plato described it) is “simply power.”
In the dialog Sophist, written in 360 BC, Plato wrote:
“My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power.”
Just as it’s impossible to definitively know what caused the world, we’ll never be able to completely prove a theory of consciousness. But Boly believes the current evidence suggests that the integrated information theory is correct—which would then scientifically validate Plato’s views from more than two millennia ago.
- Olivia Goldhill
2300 years later, Plato’s theory of consciousness is being backed up by neuroscience
One of the central claims of the theory is that, for consciousness to exist, it must have “cause-effect” power on itself.
Neurologist Melanie Boly, a resident at UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health who has worked with Tononi, explains that for anything to exist, it must be able to have an effect; it must be able to make some small difference to something else.
“Consciousness exists for itself and by itself,” says Boly. “Thus it should have cause and effect on itself.”
Boly is currently working with other researchers to develop a mathematical framework to test the predictions of integrated information theory.
But she points out that, long before the explanation of consciousness was put forward in such a scientifically rigorous form, the philosopher Plato expressed the idea that for something to exist, it must capable of having an effect. And so consciousness (or “being,” as Plato described it) is “simply power.”
In the dialog Sophist, written in 360 BC, Plato wrote:
“My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power.”
Just as it’s impossible to definitively know what caused the world, we’ll never be able to completely prove a theory of consciousness. But Boly believes the current evidence suggests that the integrated information theory is correct—which would then scientifically validate Plato’s views from more than two millennia ago.
- Olivia Goldhill
2300 years later, Plato’s theory of consciousness is being backed up by neuroscience
Thursday, June 16, 2016
There is a Space
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ~ Viktor E. Frankl
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
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