Posted inFree will Neuroscience

Claude, my new AI friend, just wrote a guest blog post about intentions, regret, and free will

Showing my age, through all those years I still distinctly remember a central lyric from the 1965 Animals song, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood Maybe that's because as a junior in high school, I often felt that I was being misunderstood. By friends, my mother, by teachers. That's part of teenage angst. The lyrics hold up well, as regret is a feeling that is timeless. Baby, you understand me now?If sometimes you see that I'm madDon'tcha know that no one alive can always be…
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Posted inConsciousness Neuroscience

If A.I. is thinking, this argues for the materialistic nature of human consciousness

In my last post, "Landscape of Consciousness is an amazing web site that maps 350 theories of consciousness," I said that I strongly believe that materialistic theories where the brain is viewed as the source of consciousness make the most sense and are the most likely to be true. A couple of letters in New Scientist about the above-linked article provide some reasons for materialism. From Andy McGee,  Adelaide, South Australia Further to your exploration of the wide variety of ideas about consciousness, biological consciousness is the only one we know exists. It is most likely to have come from…
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Posted inAwareness Neuroscience

“Myself” is a thought, just like other thoughts. Impermanent. Everchanging.

Most of us feel like sometimes, or often, we're at the mercy of thoughts. They arise when we don't want them to, like when we're trying to silence the mind in meditation. They fail to show up when we need them to, like when we're trying to remember where we put our reading glasses. But there's a basic assumption here that could be mistaken: that the "we" in the two sentences I just wrote isn't separable from "they" -- thoughts. This puts the problem of thoughts in a different perspective. Not as something that happens to us, but is us.…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence Neuroscience

The real danger of A.I. isn’t that it becomes like a human mind, but that the human mind already is like A.I.

Artificial Intelligence, A.I., is a big deal nowadays. I just heard a financial expert say that if the burgeoning investments in A.I. are subtracted from growth in the United States, that growth would be flat. Meaning, A.I. is driving the upturn in the stock market, as well as capturing the public's imagination. Much of that imagining involves fears that before too long, A.I. will surpass the human mind in general intelligence. And not by a little. By a lot. Then, who knows how super-intelligent A.I. systems will behave? Will they turn on their human creators once they attain a mind…
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Posted inFree will Neuroscience

No free will brings great news: You are innocent of your past mistakes

There's plenty of reasons not to believe in free will. The most important and basic reason is that free will is an illusion. Robert Sapolsky made strong arguments for this in his book, Determined. I wrote quite a few posts about this wonderful book. A summary of his arguments in Sapolsky's own words can be found here. But once we accept the reality that free will doesn't exist, a question arises: What does this mean for how we live? In one sense, not much. For the illusion of free will is so strong, even Sapolsky admits that almost always, he feels…
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Posted inFree will Neuroscience

Regret seems useless to me, especially if there’s no free will

I regret quite a few things that I've done in my life. Everybody does. At least, everybody that I know. But recently it dawned on me that regret is almost always a useless emotion, whether or not we possess free will. (I'm convinced that free will is an illusion.) I'll illustrate why I feel this way with a simple example. This afternoon I left home a bit later than usual for the drive to our athletic club, where I exercise on Monday before going to my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem. I mildly regretted not leaving on time, since…
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Posted inFree will Neuroscience

Thoughts and feelings arise on their own, so pride or shame in them isn’t justified

I'm a pretty good writer and speaker. Words are my thing. Or rather, one of my things. Musical and artistic ability -- that's decidedly not my thing. The same is true for all of us. Not in the same way as me, of course. We're all different, with unique strengths and weaknesses. But no matter what those may be -- what we're good at and what we're bad at -- there's good reason to believe that pride or shame isn't really justified when it comes to our thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions. In explaining why I feel this way, I'll…
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Posted inFree will Neuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

“I’m spiritual but not religious” is a stepping stone to “I’m living but not spiritual”

As I've noted before, am noting now, and likely will note again, my life seems to be a reflection of the lyric in a Donavan song, "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." Reportedly this was inspired by a Zen saying. The meaning it has for me is that the first 20 years of my life were marked by a feeling that this earthly existence is the only reality we'll ever know. Then, for 35 years, I embraced an Eastern religion (Radha Soami Satsang Beas) that taught the physical universe is the lowest realm…
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Posted inNeuroscience

Manifesting makes sense, when it’s looked at scientifically

Last year I wrote a couple of blog posts about the scientific approach to manifesting: Mind Magic is a science-based book about manifesting what you want, and Manifesting comes in two varieties: scientific and New Age. I've just started reading another scientific book about manifesting. The author is a psychologist, Sabina Brennan, who wrote The Neuroscience of Manifesting. It'll probably cover much the same ground as Mind Magic, but the Introduction has an interesting perspective on the magical aspect of manifesting. Recently in a comment I mentioned how our conscious mind is just the tip of the mental iceberg, since…
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Posted inFree will Neuroscience Uncategorized

The motive of Charlie Kirk’s killer will never be known, because free will is an illusion

Here at the Church of the Churchless we examine issues related to current events that are almost universally ignored by others. Some would say that's because I write about stuff that is so far out-there, so metaphysical, so divorced from everyday reality, nobody cares about it except people who similarly have their heads in the clouds instead of grounded in practicality. Not surprisingly, I have a different take. Ever since Charlie Kirk, a well-known right-wing political activist here in the United States, was apparently killed by Tyler Robinson, who has been arrested, I've heard many commentators on news outlets speak…
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Posted inKarma Neuroscience

Best to avoid magical thinking, even if you like magic

NOTE: I just checked, and it appears that the new WordPress version of my Salem Political Snark blog has gone live, thanks to the fine work by Glorywebs, the tech company that is handling the migration of my blogs to WordPress, since Typepad, my current blogging service, is shutting down on September 30. I've asked that Church of the Churchless be the next blog that they work on. If you want to see what this blog will look like fairly soon, check out the new and much improved Salem Political Snark. You click on the title of a post to…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

“Myself” is a transient thought, like all other thoughts

Who am I? Who are you? Who is anybody? These questions, which all point in the same enigmatic direction, are central to many different fields. Psychology. Neuroscience. Spirituality. Philosophy. Sociology. Anthropology. Broadly speaking -- very broadly, really -- there seems to be two approaches to answering the Who am I? question. I'll sum them up as the Hidden Pearl and the Flowing River. Hinduism is an example of Hidden Pearl. There's a divine Self lurking within the human psyche, Atman, which, when recognized, is closely related to Brahman, the Supreme Being. Another way of putting it is the true Self…
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Posted inHappiness Meaning of life Neuroscience

Happiness and meaning can trap us. Psychological richness, not so much.

A few days ago I wrote my first post about Shigehiro Oishi's book, Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life. For a thoughtful review of the book by Sebastiano Mancin, click here. Here's a second post about Oishi's call for adding psychological richness to the commonly heard dimensions of a full life, happiness and meaning. He argues that while we all crave happiness, this longing can be a trap. The happiness trap has two faces. First, there is the pressure to be happy, which makes feeling sadness, anger, and anguish seem undesirable and…
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Posted inNeuroscience Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Perfectionism is loved by religions, but it’s bad for us

There's nothing wrong with aspiring to be perfect. That's how athletes improve at their sport. That's how scientists improve at their research. That's how ordinary people improve at their relationships. But there's a danger lurking in this aspiration: perfectionism. That's a serious psychological malady. It manifests when we are overly attached to the lure of being perfect, lacking the ability to understand that failure and flaws are what make us human. The August 8, 2025 issue of The New Yorker has an article by Leslie Jamison, "The Pain of Perfectionism." It spoke to me because, like most people, I go…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Neuroscience

Part of you lives on after you die. But it isn’t soul.

I've got some good news and bad news for you. The good news is that part of you lives on after you die. The bad news is that it isn't your soul, your consciousness, or anything else you likely currently consider to be "you." But hey, something is better than nothing. Especially when it is a believable something that doesn't require blind faith in supernaturalism. I've finished Brian Lowery's book, Selfless: The Social Creation of "You." Lowery, a social psychologist, makes a convincing case that who we are is the product of relationships extending far beyond the narrow confines of…
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Posted inFree will Morality Neuroscience

Evil doesn’t exist. It’s just a word used to describe bad behavior.

We humans love abstract concepts. As we should. For no other species has anywhere near our capability for language and conceptualization, both of which are needed to come up with abstract notions like freedom, justice, love, evil.  None of those words point to anything concrete, something that can be put on a table and studied as we would a starfish, piece of marble, or hummingbird. They're purely human inventions with no connection to the natural world. It's easy to forget this, though. Just as "God" has come to mean something real and important for billions of people without any substantial…
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Posted inNeuroscience Reality

Where does reality come from?

We here at the Church of the Churchless don't shy away from asking Big Questions. No indeed, our problem isn't with questions, it's with answers. That's a much tougher proposition.  Nonetheless, I'm pretty confident that I can answer the question posed in the title of this blog post: Where does reality come from?  From you and me, along with every other person in the world. Reality isn't given to humans. Reality is produced by humans. Now, I'm not saying that we somehow have godlike powers of bringing the universe as a whole, and our planet in particular, into being. Nature…
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Posted inMeaning of life Neuroscience

Our “self” is a shifting structure of social relationships and interactions

As I make my way through Selfless: The Social Creation of "You" by Brian Lowery, a social psychologist and Stanford professor, a book I wrote about recently, I'm impressed with the insights Lowery shares about who we really are -- in contrast to who we wrongly believe we are. He doesn't mince words, as shown in this excerpt. You know who you are deep down, in your heart of hearts. You know that you mean well, that you only do the wrong thing when you must or when the situation requires it. If you hit someone it was to defend…
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Posted inConsciousness Neuroscience

The brain produces consciousness, no matter what Rupert Sheldrake says

This has happened to me before, and it just happened with Chris Neibauer's book, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism. I'm enjoying a book. It makes sense to me. The author seems dedicated to facts and reason. Then a passage, or even an entire chapter, appears that is at odds with the rest of the book. Now, I can understand why this happens. As Niebauer argues in his book, each of us isn't a unitary self, but a conglomerate of selves that frequently contradict each other. That's how we can say, "I can't believe I…
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Posted inMorality Neuroscience

Perplexed by Nazi behavior at Auschwitz, I get some clues in the Selfless book

This morning I watched a recorded episode of 60 Minutes while doing my stretching and flexibility exercises. It was about the discovery of a photo album that belonged to a Nazi officer who took part in the horrendous killing of 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, about a million of whom were Jews. You can see the episode via this You Tube video. The photo album mostly showed the everyday side of living at Auschwitz from the German perspective. Several photos showed a Nazi shaking hands with his dog, just as many dog-owners do. There were pictures of smiling Germans listening…
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