Lives on Earth

3.8 Billion Years

  • Our Talky Mind

    Stream of consciousness is a common term for it. Mind wandering and daydreaming are others. More narrowly, self-talk refers to our constructive or negative mental judgments of ourselves. Default mode network, from neurology, names the interacting regions of the brain that… Continue reading

  • Steven Pinker on the Decline in Violent Deaths

    Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature may be a more upbeat book than most people can accept. Pinker argues that the rate of violent human deaths of all kinds across the globe has been declining for several thousand… Continue reading

  • Hope Jahren’s ‘Lab Girl’ and the Dramatic Life of Plants

    People admire plants, but we don’t easily relate to them. We don’t sympathize with a plant’s struggles, nor do we particularly identify with any one plant the way we might empathize with our pet dog or cat. Compare the range… Continue reading

  • Living Closer

    One of the pleasures of meditating regularly has been the sensation of coming closer to my thoughts and to the feelings in my body. With my eyes closed and my thought stream lulled but also more noticeable, thoughts and physical… Continue reading

  • Oliver Sacks and the Comforts of Metal

    I was first aware of Oliver Sacks with the publication in 1985 of his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The descriptions of his mentally ill patients were as intriguing as the title. A few years… Continue reading

  • How Consciousness Might Have Evolved

    Human consciousness. Our mad, prodigious mind. Our personhood. Where did consciousness come from? How did it become part of us? How did it become us? Michael Graziano, a neuropsychologist I’ve posted about before, writes in the June 2016 Atlantic about… Continue reading

  • Michael Graziano on How the Brain Creates Consciousness and Spirituality

    Psychologist Michael Graziano proposes that our consciousness is more mechanical and less mysterious than we think. But he argues as well that this theory does not diminish the validity of our spiritual experiences. Graziano, in Consciousness and the Social Brain,… Continue reading