The Cosmic Connection: Beyond the Brain


Book Description

Utilize faith to connect to God, lose yourself in God, and gain a sense of living in God... How can you use God's point of view to understand biblical context? How has God imparted knowledge from a source beyond the brain to accomplish his purposes? How can the brain be 'reprogrammed' to harmonize mind and spirit? How can you use new 'parables' to communicate 'old' truths? These are the intriguing questions that have been on the mind of Wellington Watts. Now, in his book Cosmic Connection, Watts outlines the answers to these quandaries and incites readers to find a unique understanding of God and what he wants out of human beings. Using solid biblical references, innovative philosophies, and covering a myriad of what are often confusing and cumbersome issues faced on a daily basis by Christian intellectuals, Watts will inspire both spiritually and psychologically as he challenges everyone to find his or her own Cosmic Connection and become more effective in everyday life. Wellington Watts grew up in a pastor's home. After graduating from high school, he received his bachelor's degree from Eastern Pilgrim College/United Wesleyan College. He is a certified public school teacher. His thirty-three years in education include twelve years as a public school teacher, thirteen years as a private Christian high school principal, five years as a private Christian school elementary school teacher, and three years as a private Christian school elementary and middle school principal. He is a church worship team leader, composes and arranges music, and has directed church and community choirs. His book, 'The Cosmic Connection: Beyond the Brain,' is an outgrowth of his combined life experiences. He is married to Nancy Worrell Watts, a successful retired teacher, and has one son, Wellington E. Watts, III, owner of Alexandria Colonial Tours in Alexandria, Virginia.




Mind and Cosmos


Book Description

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.




Beyond Boundaries


Book Description

A pioneering neuroscientist shows how the long-sought merger of brains with machines is about to become a paradigm-shifting reality Imagine living in a world where people use their computers, drive their cars, and communicate with one another simply by thinking. In this stunning and inspiring work, Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis shares his revolutionary insights into how the brain creates thought and the human sense of self—and how this might be augmented by machines, so that the entire universe will be within our reach. Beyond Boundaries draws on Nicolelis's ground-breaking research with monkeys that he taught to control the movements of a robot located halfway around the globe by using brain signals alone. Nicolelis's work with primates has uncovered a new method for capturing brain function—by recording rich neuronal symphonies rather than the activity of single neurons. His lab is now paving the way for a new treatment for Parkinson's, silk-thin exoskeletons to grant mobility to the paralyzed, and breathtaking leaps in space exploration, global communication, manufacturing, and more. Beyond Boundaries promises to reshape our concept of the technological future, to a world filled with promise and hope.




New Light on the Black Death


Book Description

Exploring new ideas behind the emergence of the bubonic plague




The Intelligence of the Cosmos


Book Description

From the cutting edge of science and living spirituality: a guide to understanding our identity and purpose in the world • Outlines the new understanding of matter and mind coming to light at the cutting edge of physics and consciousness research • Explains how we can evolve consciously, become connected with each other, and flourish on this planet • Includes contributions from Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette For the outdated mainstream paradigm the world is a giant mechanism functioning in accordance with known and knowable laws and regularities. The new paradigm emerging in science offers a different concept: The world is an interconnected, coherent whole, and it is informed by a cosmic intelligence. This is not a finite, mechanistic-material world. It is a consciousness-infused whole-system world. We are conscious beings who emerge and co-evolve as complex, cosmic-intelligence in-formed vibrations in the Akashic Field of the universe. Ervin Laszlo and his collaborators from the forefront of science, cosmology, and spirituality show how the re-discovery of who we are and why we are here integrates seamlessly with the wisdom traditions as well as with the new emerging worldview in the sciences, revealing a way forward for humanity on this planet. They explain how we have reached a point of critical incoherence and tell us that to save ourselves, our environment, and society, we need a critical mass of people to consciously evolve a new thinking. Offering a guidepost to orient this evolution, Laszlo examines the nature of consciousness in the universe, showing how our bodies and minds act as transmitters of consciousness from the intelligence of the cosmos and how understanding science’s new concept of the world enables us to re-discover our identity and our purpose in our world. With bold vision and forward thinking, Laszlo and his contributors Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette outline the new idea of the world and of ourselves in the world. They help us discover how we can overcome these divisive times and blossom into a new era of peace, coherence, connection, and global wellbeing.




Overloaded


Book Description

A NEW SCIENTIST BOOK OF THE YEAR From adrenaline to dopamine, our lives are shaped by the chemicals that control us. They are the hormones and neurotransmitters that our brains run on, and Overloaded looks at the roles they play in all aspects of our experiences, from how we make decisions, who we love, what we remember to basic survival drives such as hunger, fear and sleep. Author Ginny Smith explores what these tiny molecules do: what roles do cortisol and adrenaline play in memory formation? How do hormones and neurotransmitters affect the trajectory of our romantic relationships? Ginny meets scientists at the cutting-edge of brain chemistry research who are uncovering unexpected connections between these crucial chemicals. An eye-opening route through the remarkable world of neuro-transmitters, Overloaded unveils the chemicals inside each of us that touch every facet of our lives.




Social


Book Description

We are profoundly social creatures--more than we know. In Social, renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world--other people and our relation to them. It is believed that we must commit 10,000 hours to master a skill. According to Lieberman, each of us has spent 10,000 hours learning to make sense of people and groups by the time we are ten. Social argues that our need to reach out to and connect with others is a primary driver behind our behavior. We believe that pain and pleasure alone guide our actions. Yet, new research using fMRI--including a great deal of original research conducted by Lieberman and his UCLA lab--shows that our brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure. Fortunately, the brain has evolved sophisticated mechanisms for securing our place in the social world. We have a unique ability to read other people’s minds, to figure out their hopes, fears, and motivations, allowing us to effectively coordinate our lives with one another. And our most private sense of who we are is intimately linked to the important people and groups in our lives. This wiring often leads us to restrain our selfish impulses for the greater good. These mechanisms lead to behavior that might seem irrational, but is really just the result of our deep social wiring and necessary for our success as a species. Based on the latest cutting edge research, the findings in Social have important real-world implications. Our schools and businesses, for example, attempt to minimalize social distractions. But this is exactly the wrong thing to do to encourage engagement and learning, and literally shuts down the social brain, leaving powerful neuro-cognitive resources untapped. The insights revealed in this pioneering book suggest ways to improve learning in schools, make the workplace more productive, and improve our overall well-being.




Cosmic Connection


Book Description

In a bold departure from her earlier books, medium and psychic Carole Lynne shares the story of her own growing revelation of the interconnected, interplanetary, cosmic energy that flows around and through us all, that is, indeed, the stuff we are made of. Experience Carole Lynne's journey of a lifetime as she goes into an altered state of consciousness and brings messages from "My Guidance" and "The Energy." Receive a glimpse into the nature of the spiritual forces that have created us and continue to manifest life. Evolution is not over! The future of our world depends on our abilities to evolve in a positive way: to let go of our egos, to realize that we are not separate beings, and to evolve to a consciousness that finds poverty, pollution, and war unthinkable. We are responsible for the future. But how can we change in order to have better personal lives and to make better choices for our world? As we approach 2012 and a seeming meltdown of economic and societal infrastructures more and more people are turning to other realms for solace, advice, and the tools they need to live every day. In the past when this has happened (during the Great Depression or WWI, for example) a great deal of material from other realms was given to us. Carole Lynne’s work joins that of her predecessors and her contemporaries in providing that information for tomorrow’s world.




Beyond the Rainbow


Book Description

A definitive spiritual handbook and political manifesto for the new millennium. A magical, practical journey into multidimensional reality; deeply revealing, refreshing, and transforming for all seekers on the Path.




Probable Impossibilities


Book Description

The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers,” explores these questions and more—from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang. Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.