It has been pretty obvious for centuries that all we know about the world comes to us by means of our senses. Even the vast new body of knowledge about the universe that Science has provided lately comes indirectly through indirect "evidence" and human reasoning, which turn out to be the most powerful of our senses in the long run. But if anyone suggests to me that this means that the "real world" is entirely a matter of our imagination and there is really nothing "out there", I will suggest that he (it's always a "he") take another drag of on his funny cigarette and go lie down somewhere. Let the rest of us talk seriously. What is an endless subject of fascination is the surprising difference between what we perceive and what we can subsequently learn is "really" happening. We learn that we do, indeed, see the world through very foggy lenses and that the more we learn about the world, the more we find out how little of it is perc...

In a previous post  I sketched out the importance of being a bit more imaginative when we ask the difficult question, What is the mind like . It's time to abandon the ancient assumptions that I have a little person inside my head  that's the "real me" and somehow, perhaps this little person (the soul) will survive death. It's obviously not like that. There is "nobody home" in the brain, nothing "controlling" it. The "self" is what it feels like to be a brain. That is still a big mystery, but progress nonetheless. Here, I'd like to discuss another aspect of the ancient view. Is there only one "self" running around in my brain? And, while we are at it, is there more to the "self" than this entity that seems to be looking out my eyes? Is there more to "me" than the "me" I feel writing these lines? Mountains of experimental evidence says there is. Lots more. I have always been very interested i...

What is the "self"? Among proponents of mindfulness and Zen, it is common to say that the "self" is an illusion - that the "self" does not really exist. Such talk leads us immediately into paradox, but Zen loves paradox. Vast amounts of ink are spilled in discussions about how, if the self doesn't exist, who or what it is that knows it doesn't exist. The self seems to be a matter of daily experience. Saying it's an illusion is little more than an attention-getting opinion or a device to sell books. To me, the problem seems to be a shortcoming of language. I just read a treatment of this issue that purported to solve it all by claiming that the self is a verb not a noun . This poor individual was trying to tackle one of the hardest problems in the world using his tenuous grip on the grammar he learned in school. He dimly perceives that the "self" is not an ordinary "thing", so he concludes it must be the only other kind of g...

Are you a Christian? If so, I assume you believe the following: 1. Adam is a historical person who incurred a debt, passed on to all of humanity, because of his disobedience to God 2. All humans are born bearing the debt of Adam's sin 3. Jesus (God in Human Form) redeemed this debt (to Himself) by dying on the cross (but not really dying) 4. Belief that this story is literally true is the necessary and sufficient criterion to obtain eternal life. If you *don't* believe in the founding myth of Christianity, you are not a Christian. You may comfort yourself that you believe in a "higher power" or that "things happen for a reason" but that doesn't make you Christian. Christianity is not about belief in some generic God. It's belief in a *specific*, historical reality. By my own definition, I am not now and never have been a Christian, nor do I know a single Christian. The founding myth is so preposterous that we have somehow parked it in the back of our...

The Truman Show , 1999, is a rich and thought-provoking source of metaphor (imagine here that I pause to watch the whole movie again ...) The Truman Show Delusion  is a variety of paranoia where the sufferer imagines himself to be "on stage" all the time - the centre of a grand performance. I have tasted this one myself in the early days of what came to be called "bipolar illness" - a rather useless term that has come to refer just about any dislocation in the "normal" way we feel about ourselves and our relationship to "reality". I'm all better now, thank you, but my earlier struggles have taught me that there are many alternatives to what is called a "normal" frame of mind. Almost everyone has a version of the Truman Show Delusion. We all feel ourselves to be the centre of the universe. That's an illusion created by our brains.  If that function is not working, we can have "out of body" experiences. But the "nor...

Wikipedia here Hudson's web site here Hudson is an expert on Marxism. He quotes Marx extensively and in detail in all his analysis that I have read. However, Hudson is not a "traditional" Marxist by any means. His critique of modern society is far reaching and contains many ideas that would have made little sense to Marx, or anybody from his time. Fundamentally, Marx was wrong about the way he saw the future unfolding.