Willful Ignorance's topics - tribe.net

"If the situation permits there will be a live video demonstration of telekinesis"

2009-09-02T02:16:59Z

This event is taking place tonight Fri 2/27/2009 in Los Altos, CA around 8PM. I've just copy pasted from the URL for you:

Where Science and Consciousness produce wisdom (Foundation for Mind Being Research) http://www.fmbr.org/newsletter.php

A live video link with the Institute of Biosensory Psychology in Russia:
A leading community in the realm of telekinesis and
the exciting scientific field of Biosensory Psychology.

At our February meeting we will establish a live video link with the Institute of Biosensory Psychology in St. Petersburg, Russia and engage in an interactive discussion concerning recent advances in telekinesis and a very interesting branch of modern science that was born at this Institute called Biosensory Psychology. In 2008 the Institute of Biosensory Psychology was awarded a Guinness world record in the nomination of the largest community of people that were taught in the shortest period of time the skills of telekinesis (moving objects without contact). There have been over 250 registered telekinesis practitioners that participated in the record. At the present time training of groups is conducted with an almost 100% success rate.

Biosensory Psychology is a new science that was born in St. Petersburg, Russia as a result of many years of research and observations under the guidance of Vladimir Tonkov. It is based on the fact of registering repeatability and trainability of the phenomena of psychokinesis as the most demonstrative example of the material manifestation of the psyche, which under the interpretation of classical psychological doctrine acts as an ideal (non-material) component of a human being.

The term biosensory is based on an interconnection of two word meaning elements: bio from the Greek bios (life), meaning in relation to biological objects; and sense from the Latin sentire (to perceive; feel), meaning by application of the sensing apparatus.

About the Institute:

The Institute of Biosensory Psychology, St. Petersburg, Russia is a non-commercial private educational institution providing additional professional education and training in fields of biosensory psychology, bioenergy informational studies, healing, breathwork and paranormal practices. The Institute has carried on its activity under different organizational forms since 1993. In that time period approximately 100,000 people have undergone studies.

Its main activity includes:

- Education activity, including seminars, advanced training and professional development in the field of practice of natural human biosensory abilities. Areas of study include subjects such as perception, sensitivity, thought, including that of psychic practice, healing and energy informational exchange and much more, through standard programs and individual custom-tailored ones, including training and re-training of Russian and foreign specialists.
- Social, educational (enlightenment) and research activity connected with the study, promotion and development of these areas for study and work in Russia and abroad.
- Organization, administration and participation in scientific and practical conferences on topics of biosensory studies, healing, energy informational exchange and adjacent areas, including on an international level. - Participation in legislative processes within the Russian Federation regarding questions of creation and improvement of the legal grounds regulating folk medicine, as well as realization and improvement of due enforcement of these regulations in healing practice in Russia.
- Other related activity tied to instilment of biosensory studies, practice and professions into contemporary society.

REGULAR MEETING TIME: Friday, 8:00 p.m., February 27, 2009

A $15 donation is asked of non-members, at the door Students with ID, a $5 donation is asked

FOLLOW-UP SESSION TIME: Saturday, 11:00 AM, February 28, 2009
- It is likely that the founder of the Institute of Biosensory Psychology, Vladimir V. Tonkov will participate.
- If the situation permits there will be a live video demonstration of telekinesis.

PLACE: Christ Episcopal Church
1040 Border Road, Los Altos, CA

DIRECTIONS to Christ Episcopal Church, Los Altos

From Hwy 101:
1. Take the San Antonio Road exit into Mtn. View.
2. Continue on San Antonio Road past Camino Real to Foothill Expressway (approximately
4 miles).
3. Turn left on Foothill Expressway.
4. Turn right at the first corner onto El Monte Road.
5. Turn left at the first stop light onto University Ave until it ends and you must turn right onto Anita Ave., then follow the University Avenue/Anita Ave. instructions below.

From Hwy 280:
1. Take the El Monte/Moody Road exit in Los Altos.
2. Turn on El Monte toward SF Bay.
3. Turn right at the stop light onto University Ave until it ends and you must turn right onto Anita Ave., and then follow the University Avenue/Anita instructions below.

From University Avenue/Anita Avenue:
1. Turn right on Anita Ave, take an immediate left onto Border Road for 1-1/2 blocks.
2. Pass the junction with Border Hill Dr., then turn right at the first large driveway and go up the road on the LEFT SIDE to the top church parking lot. (Sign will say Church Office).
3. Park in the large lot at the TOP of the slope.
4. FMBR meets in the bldg. on the left, opposite the main door to the church sanctuary.
# Map and picture to FMBR Meeting place.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

Fundimental flaw to determinism

2009-04-21T20:25:31Z

Determinism makes the mechanistic claim that the universe is like a big billiard table and as long as you know all the antecedents you can predict all the out comes. Before I've mentioned that because of non deterministic macro events like the destructive deformation of surfaces during impact and the influence of intelligent agents.

Today I'm going to look at the premise that it is possible to know all the antecedents.

Knowing antecedents has two fundamental flaws. 1. The infinite regress due to a lack of "first cause." and 2. Knowledge of an event is limited by the speed of light.

So let's set up the pool table. You hit the cue ball and the tip breaks on the cue. The ball careens down the table and a grad student reaches out and tunks it with his finger for no discernible reason. Then just before it hits the ball a micro black hole traveling at close to the speed of light which was out side your original range of detection when you hit the ball passes by, collapsing the ball and the cue ball falls though the hole in the table. Sitting in the rubble you wonder why you even thought this was a good idea.

None of the original predictions of determinism succeeded. There are unknowable factors even in the macro universe which preclude this sort of simplistic view.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 167 replies

Did you know?

2009-04-14T02:56:29Z

This has been around but some neat ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

awareness and muscle activity

2009-03-31T21:28:44Z

In response to the reply by VoodooChild...

"I doubt the muscles in our face, head, and neck can communicate that much to our brain about different awareness states"

I'd say the pattern communicated by the matrix of tension and relaxation in the musculature is a direct reflection of what is called awareness. Granted there's a continual feedback loop of inbound and outbound. To tell a muscle to relax is a function of realizing that it is tense. Virtually all of our communication is affected via muscle contraction. What we call awareness is infinitely variable - infinitely variable muscular activity.

Over the years there has been a fair amount of scientific research related to meditation - some is promotion, some to legitimize meditation. And there are many studies related to MRIs and scans and blood flows and brain waves and even changes in chemical composition of the blood. Though I was once attracted to such efforts, personally I'm not really interested much any more.

In some circles a certain value is given to being aware of being aware - the self being aware of itself, something higher being aware of something lower, as though it makes sense to even make such a distinction. When we attempt to directly observe the process of awareness - it stops dead in its tracks; there's simply nothing there, yet after the realization of such an experience imagination generally manifests instantly, spinning all sorts of tales. This is mind returning with a vengeance to fill in the gap. And this is communicated to one's self and the outside world via muscle contractions - nothing more.

The musculature seamlessly responds in kind to the environment, whether we attribute this environment as being our inner or outer world. It's just the process of achieving equilibrium, and it will occur with or without our illusory intervention. If it appears that you are aware of it, then that was exactly what was required at that moment to achieve balance. If you were not aware you will not even remember, yet, that too was needed to achieve balance. Your differentiating ego-bound conscious awareness (which is a bit of an oxymoron) with a higher state is a subjective interpretation. I'd say they are both of equal value and both beyond our capabilities of controlling. Yet there's a powerful desire and perceived value of affecting and experiencing one over the other.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 48 replies

indeterminacy in brain and behavior

2009-03-13T01:27:18Z

determinism is impossible to prove, because it is an all-encompassing claim. what remains puzzling is whether instances of observed indeterminacy are the result of a lack of sufficient knowledge, or a true reflection of fundamental realities.

neuroeconomist paul glimcher's work at NYU on the neurobiology of choice-making, among other issues, is fascinating:

http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~glimcher/index.html

http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~glimcher/pubs.html

this review from 2005 accumulates information about indeterminacy in brain and behavior, and is worth your attention:

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/eprint/pYa2evRsenbqaKQjkFbe/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141429

i recommend that all diehard determinists read this review and take a moment to ponder its implications.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

the nature of causality

2009-02-26T02:34:27Z

hume famously wrote that cause-effect relationships were not observable. they had to be inferred. his famous examples was the sunrise, which we assume will occur every morning, but not with any air-tight proof.

yet we speak of causality all the time, and not without meaning and results.

repeatability and reproducibility, both terms that problematically assume identity across multiple trials is possible, are bulwarks of the scientific method.

so, when can we speak of cause and effect? are we to take these concerns and end the practice, or are these caveats only to keep in mind at all times, advancing carefully with our causal claims?

and when does it make sense to talk about cause-effect relationships? are there some situations that are more appropriate than others?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 20 replies

Love and Determinism

2009-02-24T16:02:22Z

It's beyond my control...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjUmvHBgHr0

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

free will & mental disorder

2009-02-20T07:53:42Z

at some point along the line, the normal, responsible, free person's neurosis becomes something that is not considered a part of their personality or personhood, but something they are afflicted by: a mental disorder. our notions of free will are very active in the notion of mental disorder, and i wanted to ask not only for intellectual, but for personal input on this topic. some related questions:

if free will is not real, then are we all equally responsible for our behavior?

if free will is not real, then is there no meaningful distinction between voluntary and involuntary acts?

if free will is not real, then is there no such thing as not "doing your best"?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 15 replies

Reformated a tribe on meditation

2009-01-28T16:00:26Z

Hey everyone, I started a tribe on the practice of breath awareness, so if you guys are intereted in discussing meditation, feel free to join!

http://tribes.tribe.net/theconsciousenergybreath

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

experiment in neural causality

2008-12-23T05:14:05Z

ok, so, what i am writing here is determining what you're going to respond. it is the local proximate cause of what you are about to say. on the tip of your tongue, your clever witticism begins to take shape, until you ask yourself, "wait! do i want to be clever, as he says?" and then decide to open the field. scanning your knowledge of the brain, you begin down a path of electrochemical cascading interactions including activation of your speech and listening networks that simulate conversation and are part of the experience of an unshareable zone called subjectivity. you read that one more time, take a sip, blink. the pinball falls from the precipice.

okay, so what are the results?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 9 replies

Spoon bending

2008-11-10T09:34:05Z

1.) I've brought up this topic a number of times. Charles expressed interest in it.

2.) The topic of spoon bending to me relates with the concept of Willful Ignorance.

I've personally bent quit a few spoons and forks using energy. When I focus red energy into the spoon, it becomes soft, very soft to the point that it feels loose... even more loose than a soft paper clip. Then I just start twisting and turning it. Shortly after it gets hard again and the bending stops. The amount of bending has to do with how much energy I put into it. I've also noticed that it's not easy for me to do it around people who are asking me to do it, or coming from a place of doubt. I was able to do it in a group where I learned to do this, though I wasn't able to do it by myself. After some meditative work on myself, I removed doubt, and also gave myself the energy of "self acknowledgment" after this I've been able to do it by myself easily so long as I'm in a somewhat energy sensitive or relaxed mode which is more than 80% of the time for me.

I also noticed that if I use white energy and tried to bend a spoon or fork, it cracks like glass. Using other vibrations that are purple/blue/green (I actually see the color of the energy I output and can control their vibration, intensity) nothing happens to the metal.

I have been so far unable to make it bend without actually using my fingers to bend it. Some folks do this, I haven't learned yet though fully believe it is possible.

My desire for this has been with my efforts in trying to bridge the energetic realm with the physical and create a bridge of understanding at least for my own self.

Additionally, I would also like to share this link of a person named Jack Houck http://www.jackhouck.com/
Jack has been able to do this bending by will without touching it. He has been teaching people to do this for many years, and is of a aeronautics/mechanics/engineering background. He has made a study of this by taking magnified photographs and made his best attempts to present data at a scientific level. I feel for those interested, that would be a good link to start with.

Kindly,
Ramiel

posted in Willful Ignorance - 56 replies

"neurosciences and free will" symposium

2008-10-25T22:44:45Z

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cssr/symposia.html

wicked cool. watch the videos!

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

good sci-fi?

2008-10-22T17:50:55Z

i need to read some good fiction, my friends. sci-fi particularly. it's such a stab in the dark though as a genre, so much characterless shit mixed in with the visionary delights. anyone read any delany? i tried dhalgren and loved it but shit it was depressing. oh yeah, no dystopian nightmares for me. i've done my share. any recommendations would be appreciated!

i recommend octavia butler's "mind of my mind" to anyone who has not read it. it's a great gateway into her work.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 35 replies

willful ignorance tribe kills trees!

2008-10-18T16:29:11Z

Well...not on purpose, mind you. You guys always have interesting things posted and, certainly not complaining, you often go into great detail, provide links and references to support your points, etc.--the way I believe reasonable conversation should be carried out.

But due to my very busy life, to even attempt to keep up with guys, and clearly I'm not able to evidence by my general lack of contribution, I have to print everything out and hope I can read it during all my commuting. I'm often unsuccessful, haven't a clue how I should respond or just simply don't have the time. So I just continue to print and read.

So thank you for your well considered and thought provoking missives. I hope to contribute more in the future.

Best, skooter

posted in Willful Ignorance - 12 replies

the free will theorem

2008-10-14T04:50:29Z

the free will theorem of Conway and Kochen:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.3286v1

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/35391/title/Math_Trek__Do_subatomic_particles_have_free_will%3F

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

the disadvantage of not believing in free will

2008-10-13T21:36:18Z

free will developed as a decoy signal about predictability. the person who claims "i have no free will" is signaling predictability in some ways, and thereby ostensibly stating that their behavior is deeply patterned. i think this negotiation of social predictability is a vital part of the free will construction and its adaptiveness.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 31 replies

Free Will in Scientific American Newsletter

2008-10-13T17:54:41Z

MIND MATTERS: Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain
Many scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesn't exist at
all. This kind of anti-free will stance has recently been getting more exposure
through popular science books and magazine articles. If people come to believe
that they don't have free will, what will the consequences be for moral
responsibility?
http://cl.exct.net/?qs=108f68e9663de9c6fa55b05869408e321ac474245f94681e2e405a64caa71df7

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=free-will-vs-programmed-brain&sc=WR_20080826

posted in Willful Ignorance - 85 replies

wanna meet each other in person?

2008-09-13T22:46:17Z

wanna get together? any of you in the bay area? let's have a little party at my place near the ocean. RSVP if interested here.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 48 replies

braid

2008-08-28T01:29:27Z

just heard about this today. anybody played it?

http://braid-game.com/

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

big kitties

2008-08-26T15:45:55Z

These videos are a bit off topic but a friend sent them to me and they moved me.

http://videos.komando.com/2008/06/26/christian (watch this one first)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vRPKIS5UM (full version)

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

self is magic

2008-08-11T07:03:33Z

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/pdfs/self%20is%20magic_wegner.pdf

posted in Willful Ignorance - 9 replies

T. gondii is the Puppet Master

2008-08-06T16:48:05Z

we have no fucking free will because Toxoplasma gondii is the Puppet Master:

http://people.tribe.net/blue-j/blog/dd6f5f20-8cbc-4f7a-93ec-9e60291539b3

posted in Willful Ignorance - 6 replies

The Sheep-Goat Effect

2008-08-05T05:23:32Z

A curious bit of information I've stumbled onto recently from the field of parapsychology:

"Sheep" or believers in ESP score significantly above chance in double-blind experiments. If you ask a skeptic, this is because they cheat, or because of poor controls, or because of some sort of experimenter bias. Perhaps.

But how do you explain the fact that "goats" or ESP "skeptics" consistently perform significantly *below* chance levels. That is to say, someone merely guessing blindly would be expected to do better than the goats. Are the goats cheating too?

This raises the possibility that the goats are willfully ignorant of certain mysterious abilities of their brains.

Dr. Mario Varvoglis, former President of the Parapsychological Association explains it thus:

"Skeptics are justified in stating that those who believe firmly in psi will tend to see its occurrence everywhere, even to the point of confusing their own interpretations with the actual events. On the other hand, disbelievers will also tend toward the complementary fallacy, always finding some so-called "rational" explanation for a psi experience, even when it happens to them. But the sheep-goat effect suggests that the differences run deeper than mere interpretation: one's attitudes toward psi affects the likelihood that such phenomena will occur in the first place. The more an individual harbors a reductionistic view of the world, the less chance such phenomena will emerge (let alone be witnessed by them); the more one is interested in interconnectedness, and open to psi experiences, the more likely the world will "respond" by creating such experiences."

This very short essay by Vargolis gives more context http://www.parapsych.org/sheep_goat_effect.htm

The universal source of all true knowledge also has an entry for "psi hit" containing more information about this odd phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_hit

posted in Willful Ignorance - 46 replies

sue blackmore on free will (MP3)

2008-08-05T05:14:41Z

http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_gdayworld_20080522_324_susanblackmore.mp3

posted in Willful Ignorance - 36 replies

minding mistakes

2008-08-03T01:18:20Z

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=minding-mistakes

a rubric for decision optimization in the medial frontal cortex. determined algorithms for improving decision-making on the neural level.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

50 years of memories

2008-07-10T02:32:56Z

Last night on the news there was a story about a man who'd been shot in a robbery. Apparently, one man waited as another man withdrew money from a cash machine and then shot him and took the money. There was a clip of the victim's daughter being interviewed, understandably grieving and quite emotional, pleading for someone to come forward with information about the killing because the police had no leads in the case.

The first thing she said, bloating out quite emphatically, was that, "Someone has stolen fifty years of my father's memories". I don't think I had ever heard a person's grieving expressed in quite this way, and for some reason her characterization of her pain using these words really moved me, and I realized that I'd never thought about the loss of someone in those terms.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 54 replies

The Social Value of Determinism

2008-07-01T16:57:17Z

A totalitarian political order would to well to inculcate in the people a firm belief in absolute determinism. This would be best effected beginning with the youngest citizens through education, religion, philosophy, moral training, etc. All must come to believe that no one has any individual control over thoughts, feelings, or actions. Healthy individuals are controlled entirely by benevolent social forces that promote unity and harmony through obedience. In diseased individuals, the channels that allow social control are blocked, and various random malevolent forces hold sway. Society must remove these diseased individuals before their actions infect and weaken the social body.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 7 replies

Before Beginningless Time...

2008-06-20T17:54:39Z

<semi-cross-posted from the Buddhism tribe>

[This] is a phrase that is used often in Buddhist liturgy and today a team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang.

The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old. Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow. Their model also suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. They even suggest that from inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular [1].

Buddha taught that our perception of time is a merely a localized reference that depends entirely upon our own observation - time unfolds in dependence upon our mind - and Buddhist scholars and lineage holders have been expounding this truth for nearly 1500 years!

So, perhaps we can validate the Prajna Paramita (Perfection of Wisdom Sutras) where Bodhisattva Avalokitshvara explains to Sariputra that all things and phenomena, even time itself, arise out of emptiness, and now we have modern evidence to suggest that this may indeed be the ultimate nature of reality - form is emptiness and emptiness is form [2].

It has been demonstrated by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (and now the scientists) that all things arise from, and dissolve into;

e m p t i n e s s . . .

OM AH HUM

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7440217.stm
[2] http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

Is it Freedom or Free Dumb?

2008-06-02T03:23:04Z

I would guess most if not all of us rally round our cherished concept of freedom. On the chance that determinism is how it is, that every thought we have, every move me make, even every sound we utter is predetermined within this deterministic universe - well, how does this fit in with your concept of freedom - in that you probably sense that at least to some degree you can do what you want, call your own shots, make your own bed? Could it be that freedom is a grand illusion, and on the outside chance that it is - what possible purpose would it serve? Why?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 29 replies

mucho localio

2008-05-20T21:38:57Z

It’s been proposed that all matter down to the smallest of particles is but the location of intersections of waves, their fleeting material characteristics emerging only when our awareness (itself a complex wave configuration) finds itself attuned to the frequencies of the material object(s) in question.

So, the whole of the material universe might be seen as our sympathetic yet deterministic responses to waves approaching and leaving us (in and out waves).

Now, if there’s even a shred truth to this description, it just might be a possible answer to the paradox of non-locality, in that everything could in a sense be framed as being non-local, and that our observations and interpretations of these non-local phenomena may only appear from our vantage points as being local.

Any thoughts?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 60 replies

karma, common sense, and an antique infantry weapon

2008-05-16T23:13:17Z

karma, common sense, and an antique infantry weapon

I have been thinking recently about something that happened several years ago, when I lived in Anchorage, Alaska.

A friend, who I had met while I was looking for work repairing music electronics, had become a confidant and invited me several times to his home.

He and his wife had very little in terms of cash and financial security, but something about them as a couple made me feel comfortable...and I always enjoyed visiting the riverfront shack.

It is of little consequence in telling the story, but the berry patch at the river bank was marked with a handmade sign..."Janets Berry Patch".

I always appreciated that my friend had the sense to find the best in any situation. That he loved his wife so tenderly and reserved for her that unique dignity impressed me.

anyway....

without a lot of money, and living in large part from fish and meat taken in appropriate season, the boys and 1 girl enjoyed an education from books, music performed in their home, and the wisdom of living from Natures own bounty.

An Alaskan family represented to me an ideal, the very natural state of sustinance from the land and family values.

I did become concerned tho, that springtime had come and summer begin to set in, and the children their might be suffering from a lack of sugar and vitamin C.

Of course, I was as strapped for cash as anybody else and even though I wanted to do something healthy and polite for these growing teens, I was flumoxed.

There was plenty of fishing tackle and hunting rifles with guns in the shack, but healthy sweets were too expensive.

What could I do to help? I knew for certain that my antique german Mauser was a sufficient hunting weapon, but even with ammuntion it would not bring the juice I knew they needed.

So, one afternoon on my way to visit...(it was a long highway drive from Anchorage) I stopped at the grocery and gun trading store with my rifle.

I traded that rifle for all the frozen orange juice I could get.

When I arrived, no one was home yet, but I carefulloy knocked and then used the secret entrance to the kitchen, and left enough juice to fill the large freezer (after rearranging a few whole salmon).

Anyway...no one ever mentioned the cache de' OJ. But I knew then and now in my heart it was the right thing to do.

So...in the context of Karma and free will...what benefit to me can I claim?

Years later, the juice has all been mixed and swilled, and the rifle probably sold to someone who might have another.

Is there any Karma in the summer of juice? Is their any redemption in leaving the bloodletting hunt to someone else? Was this act of surrendering my rifle to finance charity free will? or was I possessed to it... by the welfare and morale I knew those young men desperately needed.

In general, I think that we are called to kindness and personal sacrifice by the needs of others. Accepting that I was more responsible or appropriate for having done the act would certainly be arrogant.

I say "no"...it was not free will or any other act except the binding force of human concern.

Only the Devil could ever deny that truth, probably hoping to install arrogance to replace the service of others.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

Individual Differences in Perception

2008-05-01T02:50:27Z

MAY TOPIC: Individual Differences in Perception

It's probably occurred to you that the way you perceive the physical world might not necessarily be the way other people perceive it — that what you see, hear, feel, taste and smell may be experienced differently by someone else. But what does science have to say about the matter? Research on the subject of individual differences in perception bears some interesting observations. For example, gender plays a role in the performance of visual tasks involving spatial discrimination and color, sensitivity to sounds and odor, and responsiveness to pain. Personal experience contributes as well — wine connoisseurs, musicians, and video gamers develop, respectively, heightened ability in detecting odors, sounds, and visual targets. And of course genetic quirks (like color-blindness, synesthesia, or supertasting abilities) also shape each person's unique experience of the material world. Come learn more about this fascinating and most fundamental of topics, and participate in a casual on-site research study!

SPEAKER: Ariella Popple; Vision Scientist, UC Berkeley
WHEN: Tuesday, May 6th, 7:00 pm
WHERE: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) 94107

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

and what about critters?

2008-04-22T07:26:57Z

years ago, i wrote an article for magical blend magazine about art and an abused elephant named ruby. (i still have it on my website, here: http://www.psycherotica.com/artfirst.html )

but i have never seen anything like this....and would not have believed it if it weren't on film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk

posted in Willful Ignorance - 12 replies

is it love?

2008-04-15T04:50:27Z

On Friday evening I had to go to a class and it was time to take Zelda back home. Zelda is a cat that visits from time to time, once a ruthless local hunter, she's now pretty much an indoor cat. Anyway, I found Zelda on a marble counter near the sink off my bathroom - focused attentively on an intermittently buzzing sound coming from behind some bottles near the back corner. I took a look and saw a wood bee trapped between the bottles. Every time she tried to ascend her wings flapped against the bottles and she fell back down.

I picked up Zelda and she got really pissed off and started screaming and hissing. She's spoiled and can be quite vocal. Anyway, I put her out of my bedroom, returned and moved the bottles so the bee could get herself free herself and then left for class, assuming the little bee would fly outside and go on home. When I arrived home later that evening I found the bee on the bathmat next to the shower; it had contracted into a stealth-like geometric form - sort of like the shape of one of those stealth fighter jets. I couldn't tell if she was dead or just sleeping but I didn't want to disturb her so I gently lifted the entire bathmat with her on it and placed the mat on the porch.

Well, I guess the sun got her juices going in the morning, and she's spent much of the day buzzing at the open sliding glass door off my bedroom; they never do this. I don't know much about the intelligence of wood bees, but she just hangs out there suspended at head height buzzing away at the outside entrance to my bedroom. She won't come in (they do frequently). She just stares at me. Is it possible she remembers me?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 4 replies

Super Free Will: Metaprogramming and the Quantum Observer

2008-04-14T14:31:47Z

Interesting point of view on the reality of free will:

http://www.realitysandwich.com/super_free_will

posted in Willful Ignorance - 7 replies

consciousness explained

2008-04-13T04:53:10Z

http://www.viralvideochart.com/break/cute_dog_plays_fetch_with_himself?id=NDcxNjA5

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

uncertainty principle hijacked!

2008-04-12T06:56:39Z

Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger, a contemporary and associate of Einstein, produced an equation to describe the states of the electron from the matter-wave viewpoint.

It is ironic that Schrödinger, a determinist, and considered one of the founders of quantum theory, would by some have his ideas so distorted as to use them as a means to dissolve the very foundation upon which his work was based.

“Quantum theory arose in the 1920s and is founded on the Schrödinger equation. We often hear that we can only specify the location of an electron with a certain degree of probability and that this is the source of quantum physical indeterminism. But this idea is misleading. Contrary to the widely held misconception there are no undetermined quantum events. The processes at the quantum level are highly determined...

These do not, as is sometimes claimed in popular explanations indicate the probability of where an electron is… The descriptions are perfectly clear cut – and they provide us with a micro-world that evolves according to a description that is indeed mathematically precise and, moreover, completely deterministic!” (Penrose 1994)
---

In a book titled, “What is Life”, a collection of his writings from the 1940s and 50s, Schrödinger makes many of his ideas accessible to the general public. I’d recommend the book to anyone as Schrödinger offers his reflections on philosophy, determinism and free will, and skillfully simplifies many of the complexities of quantum and wave theory. He was one very smart guy. I’ve lifted some passages shedding light upon his outlook as it relates to quantum and wave theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

“Matter and the field or wavelike propagation of something transmitting the interaction ought better to be regarded as the shape of space-time itself, …”

“One distinguishes two things in a wave: first of all the wave fronts which form a system of surfaces, like the layers of an onion except for the fact that they propagate perpendicular to the layers (perpendicular to themselves)… The second characteristic, less intuitive, are those imagined lines perpendicular to the wave fronts, along which, at each point, the wave travels: the wave normals, which we also call rays, transferring an expression familiar to us from light to any kind of waves. These wave normals, or rays, correspond to the particle trajectories. … we obtain in the wave packet or wave group a more or less intuitive picture of the particle. …”

“… where the wave phenomenon, a kind of standing wave, is reduced to a small region whose calculated dimensions coincide very well with the true atomic size … the wave phenomenon forms the ‘body’ proper of the atom. It takes the place of the individual point-like electrons which are supposed to swarm around the nucleus. … Energy levels are virtually nothing but the frequencies of normal modes of vibration, it seems to me particularly important that now one can do without the assumption of sudden transitions…”

“Abandoning the ‘theory of quantum jumps’, which to me personally are becoming more and more unacceptable as the years go on, has however far-reaching consequences. It means that actually one does not take seriously the exchange of energy in well-defined portions, does not really believe in it, but replaces it by resonance between vibrating frequencies. … neither must we consider the individual particle as a well-defined permanent entity. … for a long time, properties have been attributed to such a particle that are in contradiction with such as assumption. … the famous uncertainty relations of Heisenberg’s can easily be inferred, according to which a particle cannot simultaneously have a well-defined position and a sharply defined velocity. Even if this uncertainty was small, and this it is not – it implies that one can never be absolutely certain to observe the same particle twice. (such) results would simply be false, not agree with the experience. … This circumstance weighs heavily, because it holds for any kind of particle in arbitrary numbers, and because it runs counter to everything that the old atomic theory had assumed about it.”

“… the individual particle is not a well-define permanent entity of detectable identity or sameness and will accept the aforementioned reasons fo the utter inadmissibility of such a view. Nevertheless, in their ideas, considerations, discussion, and papers, the individual particle still plays a role with which I cannot agree. Even deeper rooted is the picture of sudden transitions, the ‘quantum jumps’ at least according to the words and phrases that have become common language; in a highly obtuse terminology, to be sure, whose common-sense meaning is often difficult to grasp. Thus, the ‘transition probability’ is part of the standing vocabulary. But, after all, one can speak of probability of an event only if one believes that, occasionally, it actually occurs. And in that case, since ‘intermediate stages’ are disclaimed, the transition must indeed be sudden. Moreover, if it took time, it might be conceivably be interrupted half way by an unforeseen disturbance; then one would completely be at sea, the allegedly precise and fundamental conceptual structure would be undermined. In these concepts probability generally plays a dominating role. … serves for the computation of the ‘probability’ of finding a corpuscle of given properties at a given position ‘if’ one looks for it there.”

“… permissible to think of them (atoms and molecules) as more or less temporary entities within the wave field, whose form though, and structural manifold in the widest sense, ever repeating themselves in the same manner, are so clearly and sharply determined by the wave laws that many processes take place ‘as if’ those temporary entities were substantial permanent beings. Mass and charge of the particles, defined with such precision, must then be counted among the ‘structural’ elements determined by the wave laws.”

“We must associate waves with particles of mass. But here I must warn against a common misunderstanding. Neither our imagination nor our linguistic usage is adequate to the comprehension and expression of so novel an idea. The meaning here is not that the particles of matter generate forces or waves, not that they are surrounded by waves, but that they themselves can be regarded as waves, that they *are* waves.”

posted in Willful Ignorance - 166 replies

Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...

2008-04-02T22:29:26Z

"I'm curious, from your own thoughts in everyday language, how would you describe the contrast between free will and determinism?"

Charles asked this in another thread and it seemed worthy of its own so I'll take a stab.

In my experience it is the "I" that cognizes and decides whether to follow, or not follow, the innermost yearnings of the heart/mind. This mind may freely determine, and both create causes, and choose among effects. Of course this presents a moral dilemma, because what if my heart/mind truly desired to kill? This is one way to see that evil does exist in the world - if I may use a simple dichotomy of good/evil - for there are many example of this in the news. Thankfully the vast majority of people exist in a grayness between the two extremes. I also think that this is where science breaks down, because it has not yet discovered and objectified the "I" that is free to choose, but only the chemical reactions that follow. Some traditions call it magic, or light, or spirit, and it does seem to exist, only in a way that we don't conventionally understand. It doesn't inherently exist, yet it arises moment to moment to moment as an endless continuum. My experience is that most people are far to distracted to maintain any awareness of this "I" and instead base their 'choices' upon habit and pleasure and are thus exist in a world that is largely predetermined and finite.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 185 replies

kill your left brain

2008-03-31T03:24:10Z

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

the description of a neurobiologist's massive stroke is utterly fascinating....as is her insistence that we can somehow "choose" to live right-brained.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 64 replies

P(re)cognition

2008-03-31T01:53:29Z

Charles asked me to elaborate on my ideas of cognition and recognition in a separate thread so I'll indulge him ;)

In my experience, there is a moment between cognizing and recognizing, before the 'left' brain begins naming, and we fall victim to patterned behaviors of thought, action and reaction, that holds a key to unlocking our ability to be fully present in the moment. In Buddhism, this is referred to as a valid cognizer, that is a mind that is non-deceptive with respect to its engaged object. There are two types of valid cognizer; inferential, which rely upon conclusive reason, and direct, which is a mind that non-deceptively apprehends it object. Direct valid cognition is what I am referring to here, and the recognition as the resultant patterns of either delusion, or wisdom. From this perspective we are taught that we can train the mind to become quiet and focused single-pointedly on an object of meditation, and thus experience the world as is, instead of how we 'think' it is. It is this very re-cognizing that makes up our thoughts, and only by quieting the mind can experience this direct valid cognition. It is also said that once we attain this level of ability that we may begin to experience pre-cognition, or clairvoyance (‘Ngön she’ in Tibetan), literally meaning ‘heightened awareness’, such as the ability to remember previous lives, 'see' far off events, or 'knowing' others' thoughts. In sober states of mind, I have approached valid direct cognition, and in altered states I have fully tasted clairvoyance - and it did have a taste! - that was validated subsequent to the 'trip', so I do believe that these states of mind are available and accessible to us.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 16 replies

chaos never died

2008-03-26T00:44:45Z

CHAOS NEVER DIED. Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultraviolet than any mythology (like the shadows before Babylon), the original undifferentiated oneness-of-being still radiates serene as the black pennants of Assassins, random & perpetually intoxicated.

Chaos comes before all principles of order & entropy, it's neither a god nor a maggot, its idiotic desires encompass & define every possible choreography, all meaningless aethers & phlogistons: its masks are crystallizations of its own facelessness, like clouds.

Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard.

No, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all its usurious emotions.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin--your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.

To shed all the illusory rights & hesitations of history demands the economy of some legendary Stone Age--shamans not priests, bards not lords, hunters not police, gatherers of paleolithic laziness, gentle as blood, going naked for a sign or painted as birds, poised on the wave of explicit presence, the clockless nowever.

Agents of chaos cast burning glances at anything or anyone capable of bearing witness to their condition, their fever of lux et voluptas. I am awake only in what I love & desire to the point of terror--everything else is just shrouded furniture, quotidian anaesthesia, shit-for-brains, sub-reptilian ennui of totalitarian regimes, banal censorship & useless pain.

Avatars of chaos act as spies, saboteurs, criminals of amour fou, neither selfless nor selfish, accessible as children, mannered as barbarians, chafed with obsessions, unemployed, sensually deranged, wolfangels, mirrors for contemplation, eyes like flowers, pirates of all signs & meanings.

Here we are crawling the cracks between walls of church state school & factory, all the paranoid monoliths. Cut off from the tribe by feral nostalgia we tunnel after lost words, imaginary bombs.

The last possible deed is that which defines perception itself, an invisible golden cord that connects us: illegal dancing in the courthouse corridors. If I were to kiss you here they'd call it an act of terrorism--so let's take our pistols to bed & wake up the city at midnight like drunken bandits celebrating with a fusillade, the message of the taste of chaos.

- Hakim Bey, T.A.Z.

http://www.left-bank.org/bey/default2.htm

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

which came first?

2008-03-22T22:23:04Z

Happy Easter!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2270/2349570927_52c2452758.jpg

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

ADHD

2008-03-12T22:34:37Z

michael asked about ADHD in another thread. first, it is MOST CERTAINLY not a myth, although overdiagnosed, and sometimes a fallguy for the fact that schools and parents are criminally boring.

russell barkley has done some interesting work on evolutionary psychology and ADD in the book "handbook of self-regulation" which i have not yet read. i like what i know of his work from skimming it, though i cannot support the aesthetics of his web site:

http://www.russellbarkley.org

as far as placing it in a cultural milieu, it is interesting that modern cultural pressures are pushing our brains to perform attentional feats to which they are not very well adapted. a good work discussing this is restak's recent works:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Brain-Modern-Rewiring-Your/dp/B000GYI1Q0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203717865&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Brain-Emerging-Neurosociety-Changing/dp/1400098092/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203717865&sr=8-1

both are excellent and very readable books.

it seems to me there's something seriously going on with the goal/reward dopamine system where the updating as to what should be attended to is not occurring adaptively. the brain is telling the attentional system that too many things are important. there are actually several kinds of ADHD though, including a hyperfocusing variety, with which an inability to wrest attention from something which one has finally fixed on is a component of the issue.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 67 replies

what's with it with schools?

2008-03-12T16:09:03Z

I question what's going on with the schools. Like when my son at sixteen, who was in a good high school (as far as local schools go) said to me, "Dad, this is really a crock; there has to be something better than this. I'm not going back next year". I was stunned at first, but then when I thought about it, I actually agreed with them - like it seemed that the whole system was crazy, inside-out. All turned out well; he's twenty and he's graduating from college this year.

It almost seems like the entire early educational system has to be scrapped, rebuilt from scratch. I sometimes have the thought that schools are just designed to keep kids off the job market while serving as a national day care program.

I'm curious as to what others think about what schools should be about, how the entire educational concept might be rethought, reimplemented.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

who wnats to be willfully ignorenat?

2008-03-10T20:46:39Z

every time I come here, I laugh
laughing is needed indeed
sometimes the path seems
too wise, serious and advanced
almost a burden these smart
and super enlightened beings
perhaps by being willfully
ignorant, we may sneak
benevolent silliness
and a smile
into this
sweet journy
turning willfully
or even unwillingly
the forces into true light
spread scented rose petals

I can't get over the funny name of this tribe....

(smiles here)

posted in Willful Ignorance - 21 replies

science fiction - give us the Real Scoop

2008-03-10T16:40:39Z

"In not the too distant future the landscape of the planet will be mapped out to the finest detail. Physical space will become virtual space, becoming more and more real.

And that's just the beginning...

All of our vital info will be encoded in our DNA. Just think - no need for birth certificates, driver's licenses, bank accounts, registrations of any kind - just little airborne sensors everywhere hooked into a centralized, real-time network. And the whole thing will be put together using an simple airborne virus - just a little cold for a couple of days - nothing to worry about really ;-)"

I took the above post from an earlier thread. I'd like to see where people here think things are going to be in 100 or 500 years from now - or whenever, you might want to go forward ten thousand or a million years - and not what you would like or hope, but what you actually think will be going down. Share your vision.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 50 replies

free-will or pre-determinism?

2008-03-06T23:57:21Z

Charles... only 'cause this is your tribe.... only 'cause I know you... and as you know... Ramiel still thinks "free will" is what it is...
but... as Ramiel is typing right now while in a very high+deep+wide+vast estate of vast types to comment

there must be mathematics behind everything!
mathematics is the expression of being
and hence, everything is predetermined/calculated as designed by being
hence can't be free well? pre-determinism?
only that which is new is being which shines between the numbers
and being, beyond time that he is, can pop-in in between any number patterns and change things around

i.e. when being pop-in to his own design between numbers and changes things... i.e. adding some salt/spice
to make his expression tastier

and when he is making his dish more tastier... the numbers think for a moment they were out of pre-determinism

I have no idea what I just wrote... perhaps it will make sense to me later

posted in Willful Ignorance - 27 replies

explaining explaining

2008-03-06T02:06:57Z

so what do we mean when we saying something is "explained"? why do some people seem to get all smug and give us the impression that some magic has been erased when something is "explained"? is mystery in some sense utterly impenetrable?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 6 replies

What we think we see

2008-03-01T22:44:26Z

"...new study* of how we perceive things shows that context is critical. We know that of course, but what these researchers found is that under some circumstances, our brains make things up as filler more often depending on context.

For example, a vague or faint background allows our brains to fill in the blanks more readily. If you see something, and the background is indistinct, your brain is more likely to add in details that simply weren’t there than if the background is very distinct. ..."

posted in Willful Ignorance - 60 replies

mechanism of belief

2008-02-29T18:18:52Z

Charles: "Again, it appears to me there's an underlying dynamic that causes us to act as though we're magnets for ideas that mesh with our preexisting belief structures. I'd like to hear what you have to say about the underlying mechanism???"

Swarm: "In a world where being wrong can be a death sentence there is going to be a strong genetic predisposition towards what seems "right" and arriving to that quickly and sticking with it tenaciously. Of course what seems "right" and since been found to not always mesh with what is actually right and our ways of determining what is actually right are barely a couple hundred years old, if that."

It seemed appropriate to provide this idea its own thread. Swarm, what I gather you're saying is that genetic predisposition is a vital element of how our beliefs are formed, and that our perceptions "what seems right" doesn't necessarily coincide with what is more objectively right.

Maybe you could clarify what you mean when you say that, "our ways of determining what is actually right are barely a couple hundred years old, if that."

I'd also like to hear other's ideas about how they relate to the mechanism of belief with respect to this statement:

"Each of us have arrived at certain points of view, and we promote these points of view. It appears to me we attract ideas and continue to be attracted to those ideas that reinforce our personal belief structures, and to that extent which we hold these ideas, we will correspondingly perceive the ideas of others as being erroneous."

posted in Willful Ignorance - 44 replies

surfer dude's theory of everything

2008-02-24T01:31:04Z

is the universal model really just a pretty spirograph drawing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

i hadn't heard of this, wonder what the latest is.....

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

The end of the world

2008-02-22T19:08:50Z

I thought this might be fun to contemplate.

http://www.botw.org/articles/endworld.html

posted in Willful Ignorance - 30 replies

deterministic sex

2008-02-21T01:24:56Z

Have you ever considered the possibility of sex being a deterministic process? That from attraction to the birth is the unfolding of an orchestrated dance just to keep us around. Any thoughts?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 56 replies

where do our goals come from?

2008-02-18T14:55:56Z

what are you generally seeking in life? what are your general goals? where do they come from? why do you have them? how unique are they compared to others'?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 134 replies

Laziness..

2008-02-13T05:32:38Z

Lets be real here... what is laziness?
Does it even exist if everyone has a different point of view on what being lazy is? maybe those who think you are lazy are just jealous?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 9 replies

daniel wegner and "authorship processing"

2008-02-13T02:10:03Z

daniel wegner has done a mountain of research on will attribution, but one could counterargue that all his work, though brilliant and instructive, simply points to the all-too-common failures of free will and misattributions of will: projection, introjection, denial, splitting, groupthink, rationalization, etc. all very common errors in attributing will.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/conscwil.htm

the commonness of misattributing will to others, oneself, a group, a thing ("god" is the ultimate imaginary friend) is stunning. we're wrong about who is choosing what much more often than most of us realize. bearing witness to my brain, i see a little "brat" who thinks it's in charge who is desperate to make up stories about why i do things, and i have to try to calm the brat down and get him to tell the truth with some effort. (sure, i just opened myself up to criticism, but i sincerely don't think i'm even close to unique in this regard.)

no matter what your position on "free will," i don't think any of us would disagree that we are not making free decisions all the time. sometimes we drive home and didn't even realize we made all the turns. we automate behavior, get in trances, think we're doing something when we're not, think others are doing something when we are, say we're "just reacting" and not choosing... any stories to share? thoughts about this? what do you do to try to remain conscious and choose wisely?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 7 replies

does consciousness cause behavior?

2008-02-13T02:03:25Z

an excellent anthology of research, philosophy, and even legal essays addressing this question was released in 2006:

http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Cause-Behavior-Susan-Pockett/dp/0262162377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202865431&sr=1-1

it's a wonderful book.

the answer in relation to simple acts like pressing a button whenever one feels like it, is fairly established at this point. consciousness arrives too late to be a cause. consciousness about the movement does occur before the movement, but "after the neural events leading up to the movement have begun." the amount of evidence supporting this is consistent and quite overwhelming, beginning with libet's famous experiments in the 80s, but refined greatly by lau et al (2004) and many others.

for corrections of ongoing actions, consciousness again more often than not "arises after the correcting movement has been completed (and sometimes doesn't arise at all)." an efference copy of an intention travels to the cerebellum, where the feedback loop of somatosensory input vs. the intention is compared and adjustments are made non-consciously. there are people who don't have haptic information about the movements they perform, and must rely on information from the action generation processes, such as "GL." she has been asked to draw lines from one dot to another, viewing a distorted representation in a video screen. she compensates based on what she sees, but cannot in fact report that she has compensated. she senses no distortion. (fourneret et al 2001).

it is only in the place of complex decisions and long-term intentions where the jury is still out. these are largely formed in the DLPFC and/or pre-SMA, along with the posterior parietal cortex. once these goals are formed -- and indeed, this begs the question of how they are formed -- then they may become unconscious but in a sense be caused initially by a goal formed in consciousness.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

Exclusion Principle

2008-02-10T20:13:25Z

Is a brain a muscle?
It does work, doesn't it?

Technically a brain is an organ, while a heart really is a muscle, and muscle is a dermal layer.
Skin the largest organ, even bigger than a brain, holds it all together.

"Muscle memory is a common term for neuromuscular facilitation, which is a process of a neuromuscular system memorizing motor skills." - wiki

I say that motor is a key word in the above mouthful. How does a brain avoid, say collisions, as one example?
Sufficient good practice habits and experience may be only part of skilled piloting that can avoid collisions; maintaining alertness and awareness of surroundings and anticipation not prediction of possible events perhaps leads into or out of the 'Exclusion Principle'. In other words, a desire to avoid or cause a collision may at times determine a safe or not safe drive home.

Can desire be an organ memory?

Destroy All Rain Forests! ..."or the Principle of causal exclusion. If an event e has a sufficient cause c at t, no event at t distinct from c can be a cause of e (unless this is a genuine case of causal overdetermination)." - Kim

I like that, overdetermination. How does that fit in or out with determinate/indeterminate?

see
'Physicalism, or Something Near Enough'
by Jaegwon Kim
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7971.html
also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

posted in Willful Ignorance - 4 replies

read montague's work on the dopamine system

2008-02-02T21:11:06Z

read montague, director of the human neuroimaging library at baylor college of medicine, wrote a book called "why choose this book?: how we make decisions," (later published as "your brain is (almost) perfect") that details a lot of research on computational neuroscientific approaches to decision-making. i think it's very instructive!

this is a good place to start, about reinforcement learning approaches to the dopamine system:

http://www.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu/articles/Read/MontagueHymanCohenFinal.pdf

see how, as you dig more and more into it, you feel you are still making uncaused choices.

http://www.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu/faculty.html
http://www.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu/pubRead.html
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Choose-This-Book-Decisions/dp/0525949828/sr=8-1/qid=1162572172/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0848075-6751258?ie=UTF8&s=books

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

determinism is unproveable!

2008-01-31T16:39:59Z

determinism is a metaphysical position on macro phenomena that cannot be proven. i just wanted to be clear that i feel this way, since i've been such a proponent of it. right now it is an hypothesis that seems to work very well for macro level phenomena to me, and i feel that it is the guiding principle of everyday life almost all of the time. i seek counter arguments in order to test the hypothesis and learn, but there is no way for me or anyone to be certain that it is valid that i can think of.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 73 replies

applying free will to mental illness

2008-01-30T02:42:21Z

a senior therapist friend of mine (35 years experience) commented recently how the notion of free will can be misused at times as a defense or accountability structure that impedes healing. this notion that we can all "help it" if we just strain our brows enough can be very harmful! look at garden-variety neurosis -- i assume all of you have such nervous patterns -- and we can see that when they change, it is because they are "ready to change," i.e. the brain has successfully pruned and strengthened new connections or moderated a neurotransmitter or hormone enough to make a palpable change in behavior, a "breakthrough."

the exact sequence of breakthrough differs; in cognitive-behavioral therapy, it seems it takes time to effect the change in the narrative structure a person has about their behavior first. with time, and a social pressuring of therapy and expectation and motivation for change, the bringing to consciousness of behavioral narrative and subjecting it to edits gradually "digests" experiences and results in breakthrough. this is what one might expect if the brain were a determined system. if it were free, and someone really could manage their behavior by force of will, we would expect perhaps an immediate jump from intellectual understanding to change in behavior.

the old notions that a client or friend hasn't changed yet because they lack the willpower or something like that can do damage, because we're not acknowledging that the brain takes time to change. sure, swarm will say this is just another example of will being diminished that proves nothing, but i think it's part of a mounting case against free will.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 17 replies

unnecessary suffering

2008-01-30T02:22:59Z

First I'm drawing a distinction between necessary suffering and unnecessary suffering, necessary suffering being our responses to situations like stepping on a thorn or physical pain associated from receiving a wound, whereas unnecessary suffering is classified as our emotional responses to situations: guilt, feeling sorry, feeling unprepared, inadequate, etc.

It seems that much of the unnecessary suffering we experience is a response to the commonly held concept that we did something wrong - that we might have somehow done it differently, or that someone else could have acted differently; some element of control of one person or another *could* have somehow responded differently and affected a different outcome, and because that wasn't the case, a chain of emotional responses was released.

Is it possible that the thoughts that we or others actually have a degree of control over our respective actions is what lies at the root of the emotional suffering we experience? Would the taking to heart of more of a deterministic approach alleviate or at the very least help to minimize such suffering? And if this were possible, how would one even begin to develop such an approach?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 120 replies

fearing the unfamiliar

2008-01-27T05:50:14Z

"...who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

the stickiness of personality

2008-01-27T02:08:14Z

even those witches and wizards in this tribe (of which there are many!) who don't identify with a "self" as commonly understood must admit that personality is rather sticky. can you choose to change your personality? why does it take so much effort to change a behavioral pattern? does this reflect on the issue of free will at all, or is it just another incidental (in what is becoming a long list) way in which will is stymied?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 20 replies

gazzaniga and the "interpreter"

2008-01-23T15:13:59Z

gazzaniga's split brain research has shown that circuits in the left hemisphere seem to be responsible for coming up with summaries of motivation and signals going on in the rest of the brain, so far as to utterly confabulate stories about why a particular action was taken:

""From an evolutionary perspective, our brains have evolved to make decisions that enhance reproductive success," he maintains. "There seems to be a left-brain mechanism that's constantly trying to find relationships between events that you encounter in the world and constantly assessing where you stand in relation to others."

Gazzaniga suspects that this left-brain system, which he dubbed the "interpreter" nearly 20 years ago, also allows conscious feelings to arise in response to largely automatic trains of thought that run through mental life.

This interpretive bent first appeared in tests of split-brain patients shown two pictures simultaneously, one to each hemisphere. Participants then perused an assortment of additional pictures and chose the item most closely related to each of the original pictures.

For instance, one man had a picture of a chicken claw flashed to his left hemisphere and a picture of a snow scene presented to his right hemisphere. From the ensuing selection of pictures, he correctly chose a shovel with his left hand (controlled by the right hemisphere) and a chicken with his right hand (controlled by the left hemisphere). When asked to explain his choices, he responded: "Oh, that's simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed."

Gazzaniga concluded that the left brain observed the left hand's choice of a shovel - which stemmed from the right brain's nonverbal, inaccessible knowledge - and proffered an explanation based [on] its own fowl information.

Further work indicates that the left-brain interpreter can influence memory, sometimes for the worse, Gazzaniga adds. In one study, investigators presented novel pictures to the left hemisphere of split-brain patients. When these new pictures shared elements or themes with a picture the patients had already studied, the patients often mistakenly identified the new ones as having been seen previously."

http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~fle/gazzaniga.html
http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/honors-time/split_brain.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo

any thoughts about this in relation to the will issue?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 54 replies

what can we control?

2008-01-23T14:23:06Z

regardless of your position on free will, it's apparent there are some things we can control more than others. most of the autonomic nervous system, reflex arcs, and even the effects of mirror neurons are outside of conscious control. don't think of a white cat for the rest of the day -- do NOT think of a white cat. you are in control, and can stop thinking of a white cat! right now. don't think of a white cat.

memetics has pushed many of us to consider how much gets past our conscious gatekeepers and gets into our mind without our asking it to. in psychology, priming has garnered more and more support in research, and it now appears that a lot more of our thoughts and attitudes and moods are affected by non-conscious primes than we thought.

i made a movie with my ladyfriend naomi bock that was an experiment in positive priming, and am happy to share it with you:

http://colorhythm.com/primegreen/

the page has a lot of quotes and links to the research. i'd love any feedback about the piece, but also, any thoughts about the relevance of priming, mirror neurons, or thought control relevant to the issue of free will.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 11 replies

determinist fun

2008-01-20T11:55:47Z

Sometimes my mind questions whether its function is purely determined or hastened by its own intent.

I’ll visualize the little bugger as sparks of a wind-whipped bonfire darting around the three dimensional matrix of my mind, zillions of these little fireflies rollercoastering along the rails of my brain’s blood vessels, defying gravity as they traverse unique positions in space and time.

Tell me about *your* mind.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 88 replies

Self-determinism/compatabilism

2008-01-20T08:48:30Z

When it comes to the free will debate, i find myself firmly on the compatabilist side of things. Yes we have free will. Yes the world is fully deterministic. The paradox is resolved when you think of free will as self-determinism. While my mind is fully deterministic, it is *my mind* (ie me) that is doing the determining. Where's the problem?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 29 replies

Free will is imaginary,

2008-01-19T21:45:31Z

but that don't make it junk.

Free will (or, the form of "free will" I consider worth having -- yes, I read Dennett when I have the time) arises from my ability to imagine alternative futures, to imaginatively assess their viability, and to select amongst them. "Free will" is what I call that process, regardless of whether at a sub-atomic level it's driven by random processes, at a material level it's constrained by physical determinism, or at a psychological level it's moulded by prior life experiences.

(I just had to say that, but I don't know why *g*)

posted in Willful Ignorance - 19 replies

Time May Not Exist

2008-01-19T16:07:45Z

I thought this crowd might enjoy this.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time

posted in Willful Ignorance - 9 replies

swarm of determinism

2008-01-16T18:31:57Z

Swarm - here are a couple of comments you've made:

"Ah, but I'm not denying deterministic events exist under certain conditions."

"...deterministic explanations only account for a specific subset of events. Personally I'm fine with that since it is my stance as well..."

What I'm curious about is you've alluded that there is some merit to the concept of determinism under specific conditions, and I've indicated that free will also has a place, that I perceive it as a projection, and one selected for because of its survival value.

I there an expanse you can see, an area of common ground where our concepts intersect?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 117 replies

What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves

2008-01-16T05:41:52Z

This statement from Robert Anton Wilson's "Prometheus Rising", colorfully expressing the notion of an observer-created reality, was originally put forth by Dr. Leonard Orr, who noted, the human mind behaves as if it were divided into two parts, the Thinker and the Prover.

Please discuss...

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

control method

2008-01-14T22:51:37Z

You think that propagating and reinforcing the belief in free will can be seen as an important tool for motivation and control?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 2 replies

unspook the spooks

2008-01-13T19:51:48Z

Seems people have different takes on the spooky action thing. The free-willing Copenhageners might adhere more to concepts of superluminal communication, instantaneous actions spanning distances of possibly billions of light years.

Whereas those bent on a more deterministic perspective, including Einstein and Schrödinger, see spooky action as an anomaly, a paradox, a condition influenced by some unknown variable or field as yet to be discovered.

Take a stab at explaining the spooky phenomenon. Tight-assed hard core determinist or bleeding-heart, liberal free wheeler, regardless of where you fit in on the deterministo-willy continuum, put it all aside for a moment, wipe your slate clean and unspook the spooks.

What’s your best guess, your theory as to why one particle at a distance would influence another?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 8 replies

to neuralize

2008-01-11T18:45:09Z

Recently, as part of the post I expressed the idea:

“I’ll give credence to the idea and plausibility of free will, but only as a particular illusion that has been phenotypically selected for vis-à-vis survival of the fittest.

Our brains having evolved as being capable of throwing up such a projection on ‘the really big screen’ has given us human bunch a survival edge – nothing really more than that. And it may be ironic that, at least in how it appears to me, we’ve selected for a tendency that actually deceives ourselves – and simply because it works.”

Although I alluded to the idea that the belief in free will might be a masquerading deterministic process (we can coin it: ‘to neuralize’), I’m more interested in hearing people’s thoughts on the idea of the nervous system evolving at least in part as a process of genetic selection to phenotypically select for the movie as a primary survival edge (neuralization), and to push this another step – selecting for specific ideas (like the belief in free will) that might further accentuate the process.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 22 replies

maya

2008-01-04T07:54:44Z

The word 'maya' has appeared. I've thought about my relationship to this word and what it means. I'd like to hear what this concept means to others in their own words in a non-religious context.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 9 replies

Our ancestors

2008-01-04T07:11:57Z

I'm of two minds about ancestry, but they do converge.

One is that we're reincarnated within the familiar structures that we knew before and the Other is that we're (always) here for the first time, but born into cultures that may or may not be deep set depending on current familial structures.

Consider cultures that have experienced intense trauma en masse. Generations later, after the initial trauma, the culture itself continues to experience the after-shocks. Do these cultural after-shocks contribute to future victimization/ or aggression due purely to the cognition and behavior of those that experienced it first hand and passed *that* on genetically and environmentally, or is there something larger and perhaps unseen at work here? Is it possible that we DO reincarnate, seeking out whatever lessons we've chosen as a priority, and along the way we create karma that necessitates returning to the same families and cultures in an effort to obtain closure so we can go on about our cosmologically meaningful and perhaps independent paths?

On that same note, are there people that might choose to be born into cultures where the path is not so personal, but based on teh culture itself obtaining free will and independence?

My apologizes if I seem a bit "out there" tonight.

-K

posted in Willful Ignorance - 31 replies

The mind explains the brain to you trapped between the two... You have no free will.. Some were programmed to believe they do.

2008-01-02T21:24:46Z

The chariot of the brain is drawn by wild horses & could the "self" but tame those horses! Though it has yet to discover how, if to be sure it is all possible. I suspect it is not & therefore submit that it is not within the province of man to ever comprehend the simple "why or whatfor" of himself. True mastery, that of seeing how things really are & knowing their true worth, or value to you, which is not the same thing, can only be gained by letting things go their own way, they will in any event. It can't ever be acquired by interfering. You catch a butterfly then let it go if it comes back it's yours & a thing to be valued, if it doesn't it was never intended for you. Don't be a hanger on. Learn to let go. The jailer becomes prisoner of that which he imprisons! Some said "you've got to hand it to that guy, he never gives up, he's a real go getter." While others said "Doesn't that damn fool know when he's licked & to throw in the towel & cut his losses!" The age old dangled carrot. Hope, desire, emotional starvation coupled with fear & frantic need were the fuels which kept him going & propeled him, it sure as hell wasn't true experience or the undisputable evidence of reality, for "fact" clearly indicated that it was a lost cause, in short a losing battle! In the pursuit of knowledge everyday something is added in the acquisition & practice of wisdom everyday something is dropped & discarded. There is "getting" in the let¬ting go. To acquire knowledge one must study. To acquire wisdom one must observe & "listen". When the student is ready the teacher will appear. Fallacy of the road to success; I seriously doubt that what I observe occurs for the reasons I'm led to believe it does! We believe so many things we know aren't true for fear of what will happen to us if we don't.

Both conquering & saving, as in soul, are forms of domination.
And way before the Buddha or Jesus ever spoke to utter so much as one word the Nightingale sang, & long after the words of Jesus & the Buddah are gone into oblivion the Nightingale will sing because it is neither preaching nor teaching nor commanding nor urging, it is just singing & in the beginning was not a malicious word but a beautiful innocent chirrup..... Chao/Silk..... In Amsterdam

posted in Willful Ignorance - 3 replies

Anthroposophy

2008-01-02T20:17:16Z

Just curious if anyone here is familiar with this?

I worked/lived on an anthroposophical farm in PA in the late 90's. I was drawn to it because they practiced a high level of self-sufficiency and sustainability and I only dabbled in the teachings on an as-needed basis (needed on occasion in order to participate in the various happenings). The teachings were very interesting, but I've never been a good candidate for organized spirituality/religion no matter how supposedly "rational" they are.

Here's a Wiki reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy

"Anthroposophy is a spiritual philosophy based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner (25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) which postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development - more specifically through conscientiously cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience.[1][2] Anthroposophy aims to attain in its investigations of the spiritual world the precision and clarity of natural science's investigations of the physical world.[1] Whether this is a sufficient basis for anthroposophy to be considered a "spiritual science" has been a matter of controversy"

-K

posted in Willful Ignorance - 6 replies

don't think

2007-12-29T18:26:07Z

Could it be that our next thought is but the deterministic outcome of some fifteen billion or so years of mechanized evolution?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 13 replies

free will and genetic propagation

2007-12-25T03:10:35Z

Could the belief in free will as seemingly accepted by the majority be a 'selected for' trait. Could the overall survival benefit of adhering to and promoting the belief in such a concept produce noticeable benefits for genetic propagation?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 10 replies

George Carlin -- The American Dream

2007-12-24T23:25:06Z

He talks about the Willful Ignorance of the American People

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj2iVgx_VS4

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

An Impossible Dream

2007-12-18T06:01:38Z

Ought speculation always be qualified with may, perhaps, almost, nearly, but not quite?

What makes the impossible impossible?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 5 replies

What's on your mind?

2007-12-16T06:30:07Z

Are our actions the product of willful ignorance or free will? Or are they elements of some grand scheme over which we have absolutely no control – genetic predisposition playing itself out in our little corner of time and space? Is our ignorance ingrained in us vis-à-vis determinism or the product of poor choices? Does our willfulness chart our future, or is even such a thought but a figment of our imagination? Is willful ignorance a misguided attempt to hold onto ideas and beliefs – an attempt to explain our actions after the fact, or is it the best we can do to while sensing our experience of life as it glides by? Can we through acts of volition actually change our relationship to something, or do such misinterpretations simply veil unfolding karmic events?

Let’s throw these ideas around and examine them through our own personal perspectives, whether the filters we’ve been influenced by are spiritual practices, groups, philosophy, quantum theory, religion, yoga, genetics, evolutionary biology, or cognitive science – or other studies or experiences we’ve been affected by – and, of course, even what appears to be our plain old common sense.

Write and exchange what you think and feel; refrain from citing long quotes – instead use links. Attempt to preserve an environment of understanding one another rather than demeaning someone who perceives differently; refrain from personal attacks. Is it even possible to facilitate a change in another, or they within us without willful ignorance getting in the way? Is such a dynamic an unavoidable part of the process?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 27 replies

Determinist Fun!

2007-12-15T16:26:52Z

Play the Game of Life:

http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

Read a bit, if you like, then click on "Play Life" -- you can expand the applet module to fill your screen (recommended), and there are a number of pre-set patterns available under the tab marked "Open." Try one of these, or just use your cursor to draw a figure by clicking on grid cells -- then click "Go."

Have fun with life!

posted in Willful Ignorance - 0 replies

the pitfalls of short-sighted determinism

2007-12-14T20:27:24Z

in fact, we make choices. in fact, we sometimes avoid responsibility for what we've done. in fact, we sometimes make unconscious choices that are not optimal and would benefit from making conscious and changing. and in fact, some of us avoid making things conscious and making such changes. and some choices are harmful to others, and people need to be held accountable.

a shallow determinist model of human choice-making clouds these facts. i personally don't feel they are incompatible with a determinist position, however. consider the process of becoming more conscious and making new decisions that are not as "automatic" as prior behavior. say, you have a pot-smoking problem. you smoke too much, you do it out of habit (the DMZ between conscious and unconscious), and it eases some anxiety, yet causes other anxieties. it alleviates some problems, causes some others.

so, you decide you want to change. you catch yourself as you reach for the pipe, and ask yourself consciously, why am i doing this? do i really want this, including all of its effects, the hangover, the paranoia, the smoke in my lungs? and you decide, hell yes, i'm gonna puff it up. well, next time, you choose differently. you start to slow down your use. you are making a new decision, less automatic, and better for you.

now, many of us, when we entertain determinism, think that somehow the process above will be reduced in meaning. but is it? perhaps making more conscious decisions is itself a determined process, and even our efforts are so. everything comes from somewhere, right?

now consider how much more compassionate and reasonable such a model would be, instead of the notion that we simply choose our behavior out of thin air. gentleness, compassion. yet no excuses, because efforts for more self-control and accountability are perfectly... acccountable in determinism. we don't know what the best we can do is, so we must try to do our best!

posted in Willful Ignorance - 33 replies

being ignorant...

2007-12-13T02:54:15Z

being ignorant, i often engage in things that do me no good.

being ignorant, i often think it is possible to show someone a thing i have found and know they see it as i do.

being ignorant, i often like to pretend it is not obvious because it is painful to think on.

being ignorant, i often hope maybe being a little less heavy when pressing on another will demonstrate good intent.

being ignorant, i often assume the best of others because that's what i hope to find in others.

being ignorant, i often forget to reflect on what i'm thinking or saying before letting it loose into the world.

being ignorant, i often think i'd be better off to just not bother.

being ignorant, i often wonder why it's so hard to remember we have a lot more in common than not, in any case.

being ignorant, i sometimes wonder what it would be like not to be so... but then, i realize...

being ignorant doesn't mean anything more than there are things left to learn.

being ignorant, i can't help but think that cannot possibly be a bad thing.

like everything else in life, being ignorant doesn't mean a thing except that i think it does.

posted in Willful Ignorance - 1 reply

engagement

2007-12-13T02:33:06Z

i think a question underlying "willful ignorance" has to do with engagement with the world. "nothing matters" is a fine position, and i understand the peaceful impermeability of it, have even enjoyed such moments immensely. "everything's as it should be."

but after the realization, after seeing thru the dualistic illusion, the world still turns, we have a body in a physical universe where there is pain and absurdity and unfathomable potential. ken wilber, as an example, had much to say about this in regards to adi da, who fled the west to sit on his guru cushion in fiji. his point seemed to be that doing so constitutes a retreat from profound responsibility, an abandonment of the whole of humanity. (anyone can be peaceful in retreat - what's it like to jump into the fray and be with it?) and beyond that, it seems to me that our very biology asks us to stay engaged, not floating off in airy transcendence.

so, if we're really honest, is so-called enlightenment just an excuse to unplug and run away? or is it only the first volley in the possible transformation of the world? and where do you start except in the thick of things as they are?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 25 replies

Is Actively charting our journey even possible in a Deterministic world?

2007-12-12T14:03:29Z

This is something I've thought about, or maybe I should say, "The thought has materialized in my mind".

We're all on a journey so to speak. Sometimes I visualize it as dancing configurations of waves flitting about, that we're just jiggling interference patterns. Even a blink of the eye might be seen as being deterministic - changes in wave patterns we perceive after the fact as objects in motion.

So, if this were true, then from at least one angle of thought, just by the nature of you reading this post, you're in some small way being changed, whether or not you agree or disagree. The pattern of waves (or even matter if you like) which was you is no longer what you thought you were - whatever that happened to be.

Our changing pattern attracts and repels. If you agree with what I'm saying then this idea is reinforcing certain patterns in you, making actual physical changes. Likewise, if you are disagreeing other types of patterns are being reinforced, strengthened into configurations which are going to be even more susceptible to certain like ideas. Our relationship to everything is in constant transformation as more layers of experiential modification are laid down upon the base dictated by our genes. Over time we change, and this transformation might even dictate the ideas we agree and disagree with, people and places we're attracted to, literally every move we make, down to the blink of an eye.

The reasons as to why you ended up on this tribe and are now reading this post are not as important as the one that you are reading it and in one way or another agreeing that what I'm saying has some element of value or not. And isn't everything we experience related to this same concept?

The flow of our thoughts and their corresponding actions (if we happen to be capable of actualizing them) appear to be willed, but the lingering question in my mind remains, "Is what appears to be willed determinism playing itself out"?

posted in Willful Ignorance - 15 replies