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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Posted inGod Reality

Reality always has the last word

It's difficult to encapsulate the essence of reality in just a few words. One reason is that reality, physical reality at least, isn't founded on words. Only human reality is. This human capability is what allows me to write this blog post and for you to read it. But my favorite adage about reality is Philip K. Dick's Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. I've praised this sentence quite a few times on this blog, as in a 2015 post, "Best statement about reality, in just thirteen words." In that post I shared…
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Posted inReality Science

If woo-woo is true, it’s scientific, so all woo-woo is based on faith

I haven't spent a lot of time in my life pondering the deeper meaning of woo-woo, but the word has come up on this blog recently, so I might as well dive into the murky woo-woo waters. Let's begin with a Google AI definition. The term "woo-woo" is used as an adjective and a noun to describe beliefs or practices that are considered unconventional, pseudoscientific, or based on irrational superstition. It is often used to dismiss or mock beliefs outside mainstream science or accepted norms, particularly in the areas of spirituality, mysticism, and alternative medicine.   Here's a breakdown of…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience Taoism/Tai Chi

If you want a fresh self, a right-brain one is worth considering

One of the reasons I'm so attracted to modern neuroscience and ancient Buddhism is that each discipline agrees that the unchanging Self most people believe they have is an illusion -- the reality being that we have multiple selves popping into existence all the time. Cognitive neuropsychologist Chris Niebauer speaks about this in his book, No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism, which I wrote about a few days ago. Here's a compelling passage from his "Pattern Perception and the Missing Self" chapter. Noting just how many "yous" appear in a day works to dismantle the…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

Obvious, but needs repeating: our conceptions may seem true, but often aren’t

It had been a while since the Great God Amazon blessed me with another book about how our usual conception of the self is an illusion. But after prayerfully searching for "neuroscience" titles, my faith was rewarded with No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism, by Chris Niebauer. This won't be my favorite book is this genre, but I'm enjoying the first part of it. I did peek ahead to a later chapter on consciousness and was disappointed to see positive mentions of Rupert Sheldrake. That's an annoyance. However, what I've read so far seems neuroscientifically…
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Posted inReality Science

Intriguing idea: chain of causality comes to an end in quantum realm

We live in a world governed by causes and effects. Everywhere we look, this causes that, while that in turn causes something else. This determinism both enables science to be successful in explaining things, and allows we humans to navigate our daily life in a predictable fashion. The only exception appears to be in the realm of quantum mechanics. While there are disagreements among physicists about the meaning of quantum mechanics, the prevailing view is that probabilities rule in the realm of the very small. So in the case of an electron, for example, it is impossible to say where…
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Posted inHappiness Religions

God gets credit for saving a girl, but not blame for over 49 flooding deaths

Giving God credit for good things but not blame for bad things in the aftermath of disasters is typical among religiously-minded people in the United States, who are usually Christians. Using a plane crash as an example, if one person survives, while 200 other people on board die, the sole survivor is held out as evidence of a miracle by God. But if God can save that person, God had the power to save the other 200.  Of course, hardly anyone expects religious belief to be rational or consistent. I certainly don't. Religions are constructed by humans to meet human…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Zen and Jack Reacher have this in common

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon, where we spent several days with my daughter's (Celeste) family -- Patrick (husband) and Evelyn (my granddaughter). They live in southern California and came up for Evelyn's orientation at the University of Oregon, where she'll be a freshman this fall. Yesterday we made a trip into Sisters for lunch and to browse Paulina Springs Books, a wonderful small town bookstore where I always find something to buy. Two of the three books I purchased were Lee Child's Make Me and Hiking Zen by…
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Posted inMeaning of life Taoism/Tai Chi

Do we really need life to have meaning? Here’s an argument for why we don’t.

It's a delight when I write a post on some subject and get a comment that makes me think, "Wow, good points; I've never thought of that before." This happened with my previous post, What's been most meaningful for me usually wasn't very pleasurable. I've always assumed that meaning is something that is universally valued by people. After all, we hear "That meant a lot to me" and "Doing _______ was one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had." But I admit that I've never given much thought to what meaning really means. It's just been a word that…
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Posted inMeaning of life

What’s been most meaningful for me usually wasn’t very pleasurable

Not surprisingly, the older I get, the more often I'm confronted with deaths of friends and relatives. That comes with the aging territory at some point, a point I've definitely reached at age 76.  Recently a neighbor died who was a few years younger than me. His wife shared an obituary of sorts on Facebook, describing her husband's life -- his interests, hobbies, jobs, and such. I pay more attention to these life summaries than I used to, since I've been doing some pondering of what I'd like said about me after I die. Since I've been an avid writer…
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Posted inConsciousness Neuroscience

As an idea, the immaterial soul is dead

As I noted in my previous post about how belief in a human "essence" is almost certainly wrong, Julian Baggini goes on a search for such an entity in his book The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean To Be You? Everywhere he looks, using a blend of neuroscience and philosophy, the search comes up empty. He persuasively argues that an unchanging essence can't be found in the body and it can't be found in the mind -- since both body and mind are changeable with no sign of an essence. Then Baggini expands the search to include the religious…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

Belief in a human “essence” is strong, but almost certainly wrong

On the whole I agree with Amit Sood's view of things. He's an M.D. who has written a book about a more modern approach to mindfulness that I enjoyed reading. I decided to buy a recent book of his, It Takes You to Tango: Leverage the Science of Loneliness to Master the Art of Connection. It's turned out to be sort of a disappointment. I'm liking the book, but so far it hasn't really done much to inform or interest me. And when I came to several chapters about what Sood calls the Esse, an essence in every person deeper…
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Posted inBuddhism

Not knowing is most intimate — a Zen koan that I grasped instantly

Zen master Henry Shukman's The Way app, which I embarked on in January of this year and have been enjoying ever since, contains guided meditations that include koans.  Pleasingly, Shukman's view of koans isn't that they are a spiritual puzzle to be solved, but simply messages to consider and see what effect the koan has on us. A few days ago he introduced a koan that I was unfamiliar with: Not knowing is most intimate. Two Zen teachers meet; one is carrying his bags. “Where are you going?”, inquires the first teacher. “I’m going on a pilgrimage”, the other teacher…
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Posted inPolitics

U.S. bombs Iran. What happens next is unknown. But Trump is thankful to God.

Today B-2 bombers attacked Iran's nuclear sites on the order of President Trump. I'm no fan of Trump, to put it mildly, but this isn't the worst thing he has done.  Iran has been denying that it seeks to build a nuclear bomb. But it's been enriching uranium to levels that are far beyond what's needed for civilian nuclear purposes, such as generating electricity. Israel is justifiably concerned that if Iran did get a nuclear bomb, it could be used to destroy much of their country. Problem is, life is inherently unpredictable. Wars, even more so. At the moment there's…
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Posted inMystics Psychedelics

The “God Molecule,” 5-MeO-DMT, points to divinity residing in the physical brain

My wife is an avid reader of Apple News. Today she sent me a link to a story in New York Magazine that she correctly realized I'd be interested in, "Who will own the 'God Molecule'?" Subtitle: Psychedelic devotees are racing biotech entrepreneurs to turn 5-MeO-DMT into a pharmaceutical.  It isn't possible for me to share the entire lengthy story, so I'll just talk about some things that struck me in the piece, along with some excerpts.  I experimented with psychedelics (LSD and mescaline, primarily) while in college during the 1960s. They were a big part of the flower power…
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Posted inNeuroscience

Violent crimes have much to teach us about fast and slow thinking

In 2011 I bought, read, and enjoyed Daniel Kahneman's book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." In a blog post I wrote about the book, I included some passages from Kahneman about System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow) modes of thinking. Some years ago, the psychologist Timothy Wilson wrote a book with the evocative title Strangers to Ourselves. You have now been introduced to that stranger in you, which may be in control of much of what you do, although you rarely have a glimpse of it. System 1 [the fast brain] provides the impressions that often turn into your beliefs,…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Two 14-year old girls raped by Radha Soami Satsang Beas worker

For those who don't believe that sexual assault doesn't occur in Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the India-based religious organization headquartered in India that I belonged to for 35 years, here's a story from October 2024 about the rape of two girls by a RSSB sevadar, or volunteer worker. There's a good chance this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sexual assault in the organization.  A shocking case of rape of two minor girls has come to light from Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.The victims, who used to play in the premises…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

Acceptance, says the Mindful Geek, is the key to real growth in meditation

I've meditated almost every day since 1969, when I became studying yoga during my college years under the instruction of a crazed Greek man who blended Christianity and Hinduism in a strange way.  Even so, I still consider myself almost as much of a beginner when it comes to meditation at my age of 76 as I was at the age of 20. (Guess that's why I like the book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.) I have no idea what produces real growth in meditation. But other people do. Like the author of The Mindful Geek, Michael W. Taft. I started…
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