The Brain in Bits

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consciousness, michael singer, philosophy, ted talks, the brain, the mind, the self, the untethered soul

Do you believe there’s more to you than your brain?

For example, take talking to yourself.

GOD YOU’RE STUPID! Didn’t you see that coming!

Shut the frig up, you!  Like YOU knew any better.

Do you do that?  I do.  But who are we really talking to?  Who ‘hears’ us?  Well, according to Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, when we talk to ‘ourselves’ it’s really our brain talking, if you like, to our soul, our awareness, the true core of our being.  It’s this awareness that constitutes the Real Me.  Because, the argument goes, if ‘I’ can perceive my thoughts, then those thoughts cannot be ‘me’.  ‘I’ am the one who perceives, the rest is simply ‘that which is perceived’.

It kinda makes sense. Like, if you’re looking at a dog, you know you’re not the dog. If you’re looking at your toes, you know you’re not your toes…um…ok it’s getting a little more complicated here.  But stay with me.  If you’re looking at your thoughts (gee I’m hungry, that woman’s got huuge boobs, I wish my boss would drop dead right now before she reaches this desk..) then you know you’re NOT your thoughts.

And then again, it kinda doesn’t.  According to an article I read in the Scientific American, if a doctor chops the physical bridge between your left and right brains, you get TWO selves.  As in,

Pass me that drink will you Ernest? (says one you to your right hand)

Drinking before 9am! You’ll do no such thing! (says the other guy in your head to your left hand)

In which case, what becomes of the True Self theory?

On the Other Hand…

Tags

argument, debate, ethics, family, fence sitting, free speech, golden mean, philosophy

If I had to sum up my theory of life in one phrase, it’d be ‘on the other hand’.

In a way, that’s not surprising – arguing, to my family, was like backyard cricket or watching the evening news – a bonding experience.  Sometimes Dad would start the ball rolling..

The human body is disgusting, and should be covered up except for the purposes of procreation.

Sometimes it’d be my only brother.

You really should get into mind-altering substances (he’d say to the parents over dinner).  It gives you a much BROADER perspective on things…

Controlled apoplexy was Dad’s specialty.

To me, life is a continual battle about where to put the golden mean.  It’s like six billion (and counting) carpenters tugging at the same spirit level.

Last month Steven Landsburg, an economist at the University of Rochester, published a post on his personal blog laying out a series of hypothetical public-policy “dilemmas.” Anticipating the usual abstract debates with his community of regular readers, he set forth three rhetorical queries…..This week students and alumni are urging the university to censure the professor based on those remarks; others beyond the campus have called for him to be fired.

On the one hand, give peace a chance.  On the other hand, aren’t we glad we invented the bomb before Hitler did?  On the one hand, we have buddhists stepping around ants.  On the other hand, we have research psychologists sticking baby primates in solitary to ‘see what happens’.  Unlimited faith leads to bankruptcy and STDs.  On the other hand, who can really rationalise love?

Despite a protest by academics, climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton has started his latest Australian speaking tour. More than 50 academics have signed a petition calling Lord Monckton ignorant and urging the cancellation of tonight’s speech at Fremantle’s Notre Dame University.

On the one hand, we all feel sympathy with indigenous people, disgust at rape and sexism, distaste for race-related prejudices, and concern about environmental degradation.

On the other hand – well we should admit that there IS another hand – a hand that’s as useful, ultimately, as our right hand is to our left or vice versa.  The human race will never point in one direction, like a Chinese state rally.  It’s always going to be a tug of war, where we’re all pulling to get the ‘other’ side just that inch further to ‘our’ side of the line.  And THEN we can move the line.

That’s why I’ll never be a big fan of ists and isms and sitting in front of university halls trying to stop people with ‘diverse views’ getting in to their speaking engagements.  What I’d like to see is MORE debate, not less.  Let’s not say ‘how dare you say that!’, let’s say ‘this is how I think you’re wrong’.  On the other hand…

What’s your sticking point? Have you got one? Are there things that shouldn’t be the subject of debate? Like what?

Breakfast with Buddha

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book reviews, breakfast with buddha, buddhism, fiction, philosophy, reviews, writing

Why so angry?

I wish I had the guts to say that to my next door neighbour.  Or, better still, I wish I could turn into the Hulk and leap up to the window from which she periodically leans to screech ‘Shut up!!!”, and jump up and down on her until she was nothing more than an unpleasant stain on the carpet.  Why so angry?  You really WANNA KNOW why so angry??? I’ll TELL you why so ANGRY!!!!!!

Only, Volya Rinpoche wouldn’t approve of that kind of thing.  In case you don’t know, Volya Rinpoche is the suspect sage in Breakfast with Buddha, by Roland Merullo.  I bought this book on King Midget’s recommendation and it was a damn well spent $6.

Along with Otto Ringling, the gluttonous, slightly priggish hero, the book prods you to ask yourself some of the more interesting of life’s questions.  Like…

Why do you bother being good? (good-ish, decent, not positively evil)

Why do you bother doing anything at all? I mean, you can’t take it with you. You’re just going to die, right?

Why (do people get) so angry?

Why?

Breakfast with Buddha is about a guy who goes on a road trip with an annoyingly ineffable guru his long haired loopy sister foists on him, and ends up being converted.  Apart from being a lesson on the risks of hanging around with those bald guys in orange dresses, reading this book had me thinking more deeply about life as I walked the dogs.  Or really, just about the actual part of life that I was walking through – black sky, cool air on my face, gums with their bark peeling off like snake-skin, skitterings in bushes, dead branches against the stars.

Like the hero, I don’t like chanting Omm.  I once went to a pregnancy yoga class, and flatly refused to sing to my unformed baby as he sat stolidly in my womb.  Probably that’s why he’s recently joined a conservative political party’s youth wing.

Like the hero, I don’t believe in reincarnation, or love as the animating force of the universe.  Unlike the hero, I’ve yet to meet a guru who’s going to convince me of all this.  Still…

I used to think that faith is what you have when you want to believe in something – say, life after death – but can’t find any facts to back it up.  I used to think that people should only believe in the rational – that anything else was a betrayal of truth.

Now, I see that the things I really, really believe – that good and evil are real forces, or perhaps directions, which we humans need to consciously move towards or oppose – that these things are not really based on anything but an unsupported hunch.  If we really get down to why, there is no why.  I just feel it.  I don’t feel anything about the existence of god, or gods.  I’m sceptical about reincarnation.  I’m not sure I even have a soul.  But I feel that the fight between good and evil, for those of us who know what it is – us human animals – is a real one, with real consequences, somewhere.

It’s as loopy as knocking on wood, or as the book’s ‘Spanakopita Cecelia’.  Still, that’s faith!

Do you have groundless faith in anything? Is there a place for faith, if you’re not religious? Why?

And now for something completely different – a CREEPY PASTA! And I’m not talking mouldy spaghetti (google it).

Burglary – just another way of showing your appreciation

Tags

gratitude, humor, humour, old age, old people, philosophy, Thoughts, welfare

H was a quirky, sharp-tempered old woman that I used to go see more or less weekly in her nursing home.

She was one of the most wretched old people I think I’ve ever met.  She disliked most of her fellow inmates, rarely allowed herself to be wheeled out of her room, struggled against suffocation many times each day, endured constant pain, and was unbearably lonely.

Oh, and she didn’t even like chocolate.

However, one day I came into her room and H was in a cheery mood, almost smug, in fact.

“I’ve been taking care of that woman across the hall,” H told me, smiling. “She’s not quite right in her head, and she’s been crying all the time.  So I just sat by her and held her hand, and that seemed to calm the poor thing down.”

Well, she said something like that. I’m not going to try to reproduce H’s broken Finnish English.

For that hour, H was almost full of herself.  She was pleased to have found someone more miserable than her, and more than that – she was happy to finally have a Role.  In a nursing home, they’re the Carers, you’re the Cared For.  Their reason to be there is you.  Your reason to be there is…is….

It made me think how destructive it can be, to be the Helped.  If you help someone, they need you, you’re needed, you’re someone.  If they help you, without recompense, all you are is grateful.  We shouldn’t be too surprised when the eternally grateful go and burgle houses, just to feel a little better about their place in life.

(and here is a little story for dessert – http://livinginfairyland.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/why-the-great-wall-of-china-is-made-of-rice/)

Wanna see yourself as others see you?

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art, life, meaning of life, mirrors, philosophy, reflections, Thoughts, vanity

O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us (Burns, a while ago)

No really, I know how. What you do is this.

You look into a mirror – any mirror – and then you look away, after not more than one second. What you have just seen is YOU. Any longer, and your mind starts to transform the You that’s in the mirror to the You that you’d like to see in the mirror, or that you’re worried you might see in the mirror, or that your mother said SHE saw in the mirror, when you were a kid.  So no more than one second, alright?

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This rule kinda applies to life. For instance, how often have you heard someone say ‘oh well, I guess I’ll make the best of it then!’. Meaning, this thing looks like shit, but after some mental work, I’m sure it’ll start to look like it’s at least put some foundation on.’  I was watching a TV show the other day in which someone interviewed a severely disabled person and asked them if they would’ve avoided their disability, if they could. ‘Oh no,’ they said, ‘because my disability has made my life so much richer!’. You gotta love people, for being able to so resolutely turn any sow’s ear into a pearl necklace.

Or take ageing. Who really wants to be old? Experienced, yes. Wise, sure. But old..?  Think arthritis, incontinence, wrinkles.  And yet, those of us who don’t live in LA or watch the shopping channel manage to (mostly successfully) convince ourselves that there’s something good about it, something necessary. That’s because there IS something necessary – you actually can’t avoid growing old. Yet. All you can do is pretend you like it.

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Or take ‘suffering’. When we suffer we often comfort ourselves by saying ‘well, it had meaning. It taught me something.’ Which it did. You can’t live without learning, and the harder life is, the more you learn.  But if you could have avoided it, of course you would have. Who wouldn’t choose a life with all the yucky bits picked out and put on the side of the plate?  Meaning, schmeening!

That’s the thing about people. If you follow the one second rule, and look at life for what it is, first thing in the morning, you’ll see a gorgeous, pointless, mess.  Gaze any longer and what you’re seeing isn’t life, it’s art.

Whaddya reckon.  What’s your technique for making life look presentable?  Does the one second rule work for you?

Random Rose: Exterminate! Exterminate!

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bloodthirstiness, extermination, extreme views, family, kids, killing people, life, philosophy, teenagers, value of life, young people

A while ago I had a meal with a friend and her model-like 17 year old daughter. Laughingly, we discussed Ms E’s latest ideological position, which differs from Hitler’s mainly in the breadth of the extermination plan (she has no particular beef with Jews, but would like to sweep a third of the world’s population away on the grounds that they’re surplus to requirements).

‘That seems a little harsh,’ I said.

‘Not really,’ she says, ‘I don’t like people. I’d much rather people die than animals! Besides, there’s no room for all these humans, we’re killing the planet.’

Green Nazism? I know what she means, I don’t much like people either sometimes, especially compared to my dogs who are just the loveliest beings (apart from my kids) that I know. But still..

Besides, adds Ms E, why SHOULD we respect life? It’s nothing special. Death isn’t THAT amazing. And that’s true too – if you’re not the one dying, or if they’re no particular friend of yours.  Only, a society that has no particular value for life, has no particular value for YOUR life, and that could be a problem, for those of us who’re enjoying our little sojourn here (which may include Ms E).

The thing is, Ms E and her ilk (which kind of includes my own Mr F, who’s perhaps a little less bloodthirsty but much more capitalist) have everything a teenager could want – but not a lot of compassion, strangely.  You have to hope that fellow-feeling develops later, along with cellulite and body hair.

Just a little note to end with: both Ms E and Mr F are delightful young humans.  They just like to mouth off sometimes.  

Rose and the Philosopher’s Chocolate: When Perversion becomes Obsession

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connection with the universe, consciousness, meaning of life, philosophy, selfhood, the self

Yes, I’m confessing to a perverted lust.  It’s called Thinking About Pointless Stuff.  But even worse, once I get on the trail of Pointless Stuff, I have this awful longing to keep going, to annihilate my very being (or following, as it might be) in the pursuit of Pointless Stuff.  But I’m not completely without pity.  I do WARN people when I’m gonna hit up.  So there it is.  ‘You’ have been warned.

Mel, you’re a sweetheart.  And El Guapo, I bet your wife adores you, I would if I were her.  And White Lady, I DEFINITELY like you the way you are.

And yet – here’s the thing.

Suppose it was possible to take your brains out of your body and put them into someone else’s.  White Lady, let’s take your brain and Carrie Rubin’s and just swap, ok?  Is Carrie now a mix of White Lady and her former self (now she’s got White Lady’s body – LUCKY Carrie!)? Or are they both just what they were before, but in different vehicles (same as if Carrie had got out of a Toyota and hopped into the drivers’ seat of a Ford instead)?

Suppose it was possible to clone El Guapo (a great thing for the blogosphere, and maybe his wife would enjoy it too!).  So we have two of him, but occupying different areas of space.  Which is him? The ‘original’? Suppose we forgot which was the original, and couldn’t thereafter tell?  Or what if one Missus Tribble travelled on through time till she was eighty, and the other just stopped, like a clock in suspended animation, at forty five? Which is MORE Missus Tribble?

And lastly, who sets the boundary between what IS, let’s say, Tarnation and Eudemonia, and what isn’t?  At the molecular level, Seb is a pattern of atoms and sub-atomic particles, bouncing around next to one another in a particular pattern.  He’s surrounded by air and other-stuff atoms, doing similar.  Is there really a sharp line between Seb and Other Stuff?  How do we define it?  Is Seb just the part of the universe that his mind directly controls, one way or another? Then if he becomes a quadriplegic, most of what is Seb becomes ‘not Seb’.  Right?  Whereas if he grabs a chair and hits me with it, the chair becomes a part of Seb.  Wrong? Or is it the pattern of atoms – the point where the stripey stuff constituting Seb turns into the spotted stuff constituting NOT Seb?  Then what if the spotted stuff suddenly turned stripey, just like Seb? Could the whole universe become Tarnation and Eudemonia?  And would that be a good thing?

Is our idea of individual ‘selfness’ illusory?  Are we machines run from a control centre in our skulls?  Or is the true control centre the ‘soul’ so that even when our brains turn to mush, ‘I’ am still out there?  Or are we a more or less arbitrary dividing line between these atoms and those atoms, a bit like a nation state in the Balkans?

There comes a time in every philosophical waffle when it needs to be turned into fiction?  Or a poem.  Anybody?

Rose and the Philosopher’s Chocolate: Who ARE you?

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amputation, beauty, consciousness, cosmetic surgery, philosophy, self identity, the nature of you, the soul, you

I mean, who ARE you?

Are you the way you look? If you lost a limb, god forbid, or half your face in some awful accident, would you still be you? Or, less you?

How about if you were born with three arms, and you had one removed, leaving you with only the average quota of two? Would you be any less you?

Ok, so how about if you had your boobs increased to size KK (is there such a thing?) and your two bottom ribs taken out, and your face re-modelled to look like Katy Perry – are you still you?

Which You ought you to love, when you’re being advised to ‘love yourself the way You are’?  The old you?  The new you?  The ideal you?  The you you’ve kind of got used to but you don’t like much – seeing as things you don’t like are always much more virtuous than things you do, take broccoli and icecream, for example.

Or are none of these things essential to you. Perhaps You are just the spirit and brain inside of the shell.  Change the shell and the essential You remains.  Then why not change the shell?

These things puzzle me.  What do ‘you’ think?

The Karmic Challenge – Week 21. Does the universe care if you pick your nose?

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faith, fishnets, good deeds, inspiration, karma, karmic challenge, philosophy, the universe, time

You know how when you’re on a diet, you go past a chocolate shop and your mouth waters and sometimes you just can’t resist – you have to go in there and buy a family sized bar of Cadbury Dark Gold?

Well, for me, philosophising is like that.  I try not to do it, because most people start yawning and consulting their I-Phones – but then sometimes I just can’t resist that dark, all consuming temptation.  (It’s also great with chocolate, by the way).

So I guess what follows is a kind of guilty indulgence.  It may help some people to imagine me doing it in fishnets.

Professor of Metaphysics Preparing for Inaugural Lecture

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Suppose you don’t believe in an absolute, universal standard of morality (I don’t).  But suppose you do believe in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ karma (I do).  How do you get these two concepts together? How do you make them snuggle up together in their ethical basket and not wake up growling and snapping in the night?

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In the LEFT corner, we have, scowling and rude-fingering the crowd, Belief Number One.  And here it is!  The universe doesn’t CARE if I do good deeds or spread crap everywhere I go.  It doesn’t arrange ‘lessons’ for me.  There is no entity thinking, hmmm, Rose has done very well on her empathy exam, but she needs to sit Humility 101 again…I’ll stick her soul in an Indian peasant, send her through a few Bhopals and train riots, and she should do better next time around.  Any more than the position of stars I don’t even know the name of determines that all Aquarians are going to wear the wrong shoes with their evening dresses (which it does, in my case).

In the RIGHT corner, replete with gleaming toga and smug smile, Belief No Two!  If I don’t behave, I’ll cop it.  For instance, why is it that the ills inflicted on me by the Demon Ex, are very like the ills I myself inflicted on other exes over the years? KARMA. Why did I pick a man who in many ways echoed my vices?  (Not that I mean to drone on about the DE, he’s over and done with, but just as an example). KARMA.  Why do I find, in my life, that when I do things I’m ashamed of, they rebound on me? K-K-K-KARMA!

How can I reconcile these two philosophical welter-weights and have them eating nicely out of the same bowl?

Haven’t these people grown out of their rompers already??

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By admitting – they’re both right.  Stuff affects us, and we affect stuff, because we live in a connected universe.  What divides ‘me’ from ‘not me’? Nothing, really.  Physically, I’m an arrangement of atoms and energy in a universe of atoms and energy.  ‘I’ am a definition, not an entity.  My locus of control spreads outwards in never-ending ripples.

How can we tell the direction of causation – what happens because of what – without knowing the direction of time?  But what if time has no direction?  What if time and causation flow all around us, like the ocean around a single plankton?  Then karma becomes a kind of bio-feedback loop – we cause and are caused, we do and are done by, we receive what we give, and the only person giving me ‘lessons’ is me.

So what have I thrown out into my ocean this week? Pretty much nothing – I’m struggling just to stay afloat. Unless you count taking my treasured eldest sister to Birthday Breakfast on Sunday – CAN we count that, Ms A?  Please?

What do you think? Does the universe care about us? Does somebody have a Plan for you?  Do they have one for the cat – and if not, why not?  Do you believe in the connectedness of all things?  Do you believe in reincarnation or is all this karma-counting for nothing?

Truth. The proof’s in the eating.

Tags

how do we know what is true, madness, philosophy, Religion, sanity, truth, what is truth

I had a brother in law who thought he was God and his kid was the Second Coming.

Despite sharing the main thrust of this idea with Jesus Christ, it was generally agreed that my brother in law was mad (schizophrenic, actually).  Why? Because his view of the world was so DIFFERENT to everybody else’s.  YOU see that pink elephant? See, that one there, the one flying up above your head pulling a banner saying Vote for Mitt Romney with sparkly elephant poop coming out his…oh well never MIND!!!

How do we tell what’s true? The only way I know, is by practical road testing.  Lies and untruths, of whatever respectability or persuasiveness, have a habit of hitting you in the face like a brick wall, eventually.  If it aint true, you’ll find out.