Select pieces written over the past few years. Click here to see the Newsletter Archive.


Animal Empathy – There’s an App for That!

Communications technology is often accused of dissociating us from the natural world. A little thought-experiment that explores how the next generation of “augmented reality” technologies might close this gap, and help us hear like an elephant and think like a squirrel.

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Here Come the Animals

Scientists and philosophers have long erected an insurmountable barrier between humans and animals. This seems to be changing. The human imagination is moving outward. The animals are coming. Hide the nuts!

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Environmentalism and the Mind

What kind of mind do we need to address climate change and environmental degradation? A mountain eco-laboratory in northern New Mexico looks at four possible answers: a social mind, a creative mind, a receptive mind and an equanimous mind.

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Science and Spiritual “Enlightenment”

In March of 2012, myself and twenty other “adept” meditators participated in an experiment to try to answer the question: what is the real resting state of the brain? Strange things happened. An exploration of one view of so-called “enlightenment.”

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How Understanding Enlightenment Could Change Science

Any science of mind worthy of the name must try to isolate, describe, and understand the full continuum of changes that come about as a result of meditation and spiritual practice – including claims of awakening or enlightenment. Otherwise, the paradigm of the power of spiritual practice is missing its cornerstone.

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