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Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 1]
The Crooked Line From 9/11 To Israel’s War On Gaza
Monday, 4 December 2023, 10:19 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Speaking of unregenerate war criminals after Kissinger’s death, if journalists could be tried for crimes against humanity, Thomas Friedman would top the list. He coined the phrase “war of choice” against Iraq in 2003, and was an indefatigable ... More >>
Cop28 And Man’s War On The Earth
Friday, 1 December 2023, 10:36 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The Cop climate conferences have become a farce. This year the host nation, the United Arab Emirates, chose an oil company executive, Sultan Al Jaber, to preside over Cop28. And surprise surprise, he’s been lobbying delegates from around the ... More >>
Two Kinds Of Consciousness
Monday, 27 November 2023, 2:49 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Autumn comes late and lasts long in northern California, but the leaves are dropping in droves now. Brown leaves are stacked on rocks in the stream, some jutting straight up and looking like little stupas. At the apex of the afternoon, an intense stillness ... More >>
One Thought At A Time
Friday, 24 November 2023, 11:33 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A writer recovering from a traumatic brain injury writes: “It’s strange not remembering the moment that changed my life, that altered my work and vocation, that disrupted the me-ness of me. ” What on earth does “the me-ness of me” mean? ... More >>
The Real And Present Danger Of AI
Wednesday, 22 November 2023, 10:42 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In the end, as in the beginning of new cultures or technologies, philosophy matters most. The philosophical conflict in the murky world of AI development, over the so-called doomers versus the ‘accelerationists’/commercializers, has spilled out onto the ... More >>
Humankind’s Place In The Universe And Lack Of Fit On Earth
Monday, 20 November 2023, 11:01 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The first step in meditation is to end the observer. Sitting beside the stream in town on a magnificent autumn afternoon, a meditative state deepened after the observer/self dissolved in attentiveness. The continuity of thought ended, and with it psychological ... More >>
What Will “The New Form Of Religion” Look Like?
Friday, 17 November 2023, 10:05 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Invited to Russia on business as the Soviet Union was collapsing at the beginning of 1990, I was surprised, in the avowedly atheistic USSR, by a question that Russians asked me everywhere I went: “Are you religious?” I gave a terse, truthful response: ... More >>
Is Knowledge Destructive To Discovery?
Friday, 10 November 2023, 12:16 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Fall is in full leaf in northern California. The sun illuminates the yellow leaves of a tree just upstream, but at first I have no eyes for the beauty that surrounds me. It takes 20 minutes of remaining with the turmoil within for one to simply be ... More >>
Where Did Man Go Wrong, Revised
Friday, 3 November 2023, 11:48 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Where did man go wrong? The question sounds almost as anachronistic as asking about original sin. It’s a right question though, even essential toward understanding what the hell is going on in the world. Why? Because core insights into the causes ... More >>
Technology Has Not Advanced Human Civilization
Wednesday, 1 November 2023, 11:46 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
At times like these, one returns to first principles, or reverts to absurd worldviews. Our views of human nature, nature, and the universe form the core premises of how we see the world. With few exceptions they are unexamined. False humility is worse ... More >>
Fluidity Of Thought Is A Far Cry From Flowering Of Insight
Wednesday, 25 October 2023, 12:54 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Why is it that even as Artificial Intelligence (which should be called Artificial Thought) is overtaking human thought in speed, knowledge and efficiency, many thinkers are still upholding the notion that we are creatures of thought? There’s an obvious ... More >>
Time Is Elastic, But Timelessness Is Fantastic
Friday, 20 October 2023, 11:15 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
As Einstein proved, time is elastic, slowing down as the speed of light is approached. Given that’s true of physical time, how much more elastic and illusory is psychological time? With sufficient unpremeditated attention, the observer ends. Then, in observing ... More >>
Slaughter And War Spew From Time And Memory
Friday, 13 October 2023, 11:48 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock—solid and sharp-edged protrusions from some long-ago eruption of Lassen or some other volcano in the area. In many places, the sheer sides of the gorge have huge slabs balanced ... More >>
The Universe Is In A State Of Meditation. Why Aren’t Human Beings?
Friday, 6 October 2023, 12:38 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The potential in the human brain for higher states of awareness is awakened with the realization that consciousness is not extrinsic but intrinsic to nature and the cosmos. Given that’s true however, what is the relationship between the consciousness ... More >>
The Same Old Human Rights Council?
Thursday, 5 October 2023, 12:34 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In light of Russia’s bid to rejoin the Human Rights Council on October 10th, Scoop is republishing “The New Human Rights Council,” by Martin LeFevre, from March 20th, 2006. It is even more relevant today. As absurd as Russia’s all-out diplomatic ... More >>
Two Kinds Of Metaphysical Movement?
Monday, 2 October 2023, 11:33 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
There was only 20% of rain predicted, but after the mind quieted in passive watchfulness in the backyard, you could feel the imminence of a storm. An hour later it hit, one of the most intense thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced. The lightning didn’t ... More >>
What Are We Undertaking To Do?
Friday, 29 September 2023, 11:29 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Three perfectly stacked symmetrical domes -- a pyramid of cumulus clouds -- form in the saddle upcanyon. They dissipate and disappear in a few timeless minutes. I am almost certainly the only one to see them, and in that fact, plus the realization ... More >>
Resolve Contradictions, Revere Paradoxes
Wednesday, 27 September 2023, 11:27 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
We drove up the hill from sea level in the valley to a loud, fast-flowing stream at about 1500 meters at the end of a mountain road. Parking at the last campsite in an empty campground, we had a splendid view upstream of the surging water cascading ... More >>
Freeing The Sisyphus Within Us
Wednesday, 20 September 2023, 10:45 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
There are different versions of the Greek myth of Sisyphus, and then there is Camus’ essay by the same name, in which he introduces his philosophy of the absurd. The Greek myth that speaks to me the most tells of how Sisyphus enchained the spirit ... More >>
Conspiracy Theories Fill The Vacuum Of An Effective Philosophy Of Evil
Friday, 15 September 2023, 11:21 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In 1999 I helped get a leading anti-corruption figure from Kenya to a conference in Washington with then Vice-President Al Gore. Afterward I met Edward in Chicago, where we had a meeting with the principals of the Parliament of World’s Religions. ... More >>
