In 1633, Galileo Galilei faced the inquisition court. He was sentenced to house arrest and forced to recant his assertion that the earth revolves around the sun. It would take until 1835 before his book “Dialogue” was removed from the Catholic Church’s list of prohibited books. In 1992, John Paul II issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church regarding Galileo Galilei.
It’s hard to abandon erroneous beliefs. Not only Catholics have this problem. Most people cling to all kinds of outdated erroneous beliefs and misunderstandings.
It was hard for the Germans to accept that Nazism was an evil ideology. They had loved Hitler so much. It was hard for the communists to realize that communism didn‘t work. Today it is hard for neo-liberals (conservatives as Americans say) to realize that also their ideology is a disaster. (An unregulated market fueled by the idea that greed is good can of course not solve the problems of global warming and environmental degradation. On the contrary, unregulated markets are the cause of the global warming and the environmental degradation.) The whole world is about to go under because of these idiotic ideas.
Some men cannot understand that their love is unrequited. Many smokers with serious lung problems refuse to give up smoking because then they wouldn’t have anything to live for. Many people do not leave their religious sect although they no longer believe in its crazy tenets and dogmas, simply because they have nowhere else to go.
What is wrong with us? Why is it so difficult to let go of stupidities and madness? Why are we so incredible stubborn?
Anyway, which convictions do you refuse to let go of? What do you refuse to realize? What do you refuse to see?
Relax. Sorry that I disturbed you. Go back to sleep. Hold on tight to your stuffed little teddy bear. Outside is nothing but howling winds and darkness.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Questionnaire
Which side are you on?
Can you imagine yourself on the same side as the Sheriff of Nottingham?
Where do you feel at home
among neo-Nazis
among evangelicals
hip hoppers, hippies
construction workers, artists?
Do you live as if life were a theater play?
Do you wear a mask?
Do you play games in order to fit in?
Did you sell your soul to a publicly listed company?
Did you sell your soul to the army, to a TV channel or to a university?
Were you decently paid?
Are you proud of your title?
Do you wear a tie?
Can you imagine yourself on the same side as the Sheriff of Nottingham?
Where do you feel at home
among neo-Nazis
among evangelicals
hip hoppers, hippies
construction workers, artists?
Do you live as if life were a theater play?
Do you wear a mask?
Do you play games in order to fit in?
Did you sell your soul to a publicly listed company?
Did you sell your soul to the army, to a TV channel or to a university?
Were you decently paid?
Are you proud of your title?
Do you wear a tie?
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Brain plasticity
A human being is a mixture of high and low,
love and hate, selfishness and generosity,
courage and cowardice, idiocy and wisdom,
just to mention a few constituents.
Those who say that selfishness is our true nature
are only capable of seeing a part of us.
It’s like saying that an elephant’s true nature is a trunk.
And those who say that our true nature is love
have also picked out just a part of the picture.
If we emphasize and reinforce only one aspect of our nature,
for example selfishness, through cultural and ideological indoctrination,
if we insist to reward and admire egotistical social climbers,
we will continue to create a very unpleasant and stressful society,
war and misery.
We ought to cultivate and reinforce our friendliness and warmth instead.
To be selfish or stupid is not your true self.
It is only a part of you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
http://psychology.about.com/od/biopsychology/f/brain-plasticity.htm
love and hate, selfishness and generosity,
courage and cowardice, idiocy and wisdom,
just to mention a few constituents.
Those who say that selfishness is our true nature
are only capable of seeing a part of us.
It’s like saying that an elephant’s true nature is a trunk.
And those who say that our true nature is love
have also picked out just a part of the picture.
If we emphasize and reinforce only one aspect of our nature,
for example selfishness, through cultural and ideological indoctrination,
if we insist to reward and admire egotistical social climbers,
we will continue to create a very unpleasant and stressful society,
war and misery.
We ought to cultivate and reinforce our friendliness and warmth instead.
To be selfish or stupid is not your true self.
It is only a part of you.
http://psychology.about.com/od/biopsychology/f/brain-plasticity.htm
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Letter to Richard Dawkins
Dear Mr. Dawkins
I have read a number of your books and I love them. It is probably more than 25 years since I read “The Selfish Gene” the first time. I think of myself as someone having a scientific outlook on life. I am not interested in religion, spirituality or New Age superstition. Evidence is of course much more important than belief.
However, I have experienced some very strange synchronicities in my life that I cannot understand.
I am convinced that synchronicities are real, paranormal phenomena but I cannot prove that I am right. Synchronicities cannot be studied with scientific methods because we cannot create them on demand. They are very rare phenomena and cannot be reproduced in laboratories.
Those who have experienced synchronicities or meaningful coincidences know what I am talking about, and those who have never had any such experiences (or never noticed them or rejected them) will think that I am just one of those millions of nutcases who are indulging in paranormal nonsense.
It is possible that I have deceived myself, absolutely. Illusions are common. But what if my synchronicity experiences are not illusions? And what if some of the many other synchronicity stories out there are also true stories? How can we find out? How shall we sift the wheat from the chaff? And how shall we interpret these observations? Shall we simply ignore them? Shall we ignore experiences and evidence that we cannot explain?
It is a pity that there are so many nonsense discussions about these things in the so-called spiritual circles. It is not possible to discuss synchronicity with New Age people, not with religious people and of course not with scientifically minded people. It is difficult to discuss these things with almost all pepople.
This is the reason why sincere people who have experienced synchronicities often avoid talking about them.
I think that you and your followers have never experienced any synchronicities. It can also be that you have had such experiences but that you never paid attention to them or maybe you explained them away because such phenomena are not on your map.
I have read a number of your books and I love them. It is probably more than 25 years since I read “The Selfish Gene” the first time. I think of myself as someone having a scientific outlook on life. I am not interested in religion, spirituality or New Age superstition. Evidence is of course much more important than belief.
However, I have experienced some very strange synchronicities in my life that I cannot understand.
I am convinced that synchronicities are real, paranormal phenomena but I cannot prove that I am right. Synchronicities cannot be studied with scientific methods because we cannot create them on demand. They are very rare phenomena and cannot be reproduced in laboratories.
Those who have experienced synchronicities or meaningful coincidences know what I am talking about, and those who have never had any such experiences (or never noticed them or rejected them) will think that I am just one of those millions of nutcases who are indulging in paranormal nonsense.
It is possible that I have deceived myself, absolutely. Illusions are common. But what if my synchronicity experiences are not illusions? And what if some of the many other synchronicity stories out there are also true stories? How can we find out? How shall we sift the wheat from the chaff? And how shall we interpret these observations? Shall we simply ignore them? Shall we ignore experiences and evidence that we cannot explain?
It is a pity that there are so many nonsense discussions about these things in the so-called spiritual circles. It is not possible to discuss synchronicity with New Age people, not with religious people and of course not with scientifically minded people. It is difficult to discuss these things with almost all pepople.
This is the reason why sincere people who have experienced synchronicities often avoid talking about them.
I think that you and your followers have never experienced any synchronicities. It can also be that you have had such experiences but that you never paid attention to them or maybe you explained them away because such phenomena are not on your map.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Free will is an illusion
You are acting in accordance with a worldview, which has been transmitted to you from your family and friends, from your church or your spiritual community, from your teachers in school and from the marketing and mass media industry. You are a puppet connected to many strings.
You are a Muslim or a Jew, a Protestant or a Buddhist, a free market liberal or a neo-Nazi…
You try to talk in a way that you believe you should talk and you try to think in a way that you believe you should think. You dress up in a way you think you should dress up and you conduct yourself in a way you think you should conduct yourself.
It is not your will, but your mother’s will, your friend’s will, your husband’s will, your teacher‘s will, your...
You are a Muslim or a Jew, a Protestant or a Buddhist, a free market liberal or a neo-Nazi…
You try to talk in a way that you believe you should talk and you try to think in a way that you believe you should think. You dress up in a way you think you should dress up and you conduct yourself in a way you think you should conduct yourself.
It is not your will, but your mother’s will, your friend’s will, your husband’s will, your teacher‘s will, your...
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Illusions
The sun does not sink down behind the horizon.
It is the earth that is turning.
And rainbows do not exist
if no one is there to behold them.
Things are not what they seem to be.
You are not what you think you are.
We have misunderstood and misinterpreted most things in life.
I don’t write these words.
Scientists have discovered that the brain processes that trigger an action
for example, when I am pressing a key on a key board,
begin more than half a second before I consciously decide to act.
We have no free will according to modern brain science.
We have no Self that is responsible for our actions.
Nevertheless, you can see the rainbow clearly
and it goes without saying that you are accountable for your actions,
the whole of you, not just the imaginary part of you that you call your Self.
Of course we have a free will.
We can easily be deluded, yes,
and other people can stop us from doing what we want,
but the will is there and it is very real.
The Self does not exist in the same way that physical objects exist.
It cannot be weighed or measured.
Activity in certain brain centers can be measured, when we do something,
think about something or look at something.
However, there are no particular brain cells
that gives rise to the sense of “I am here”.
The self is like a rainbow
and rainbows do exist.
The idea that the Self is an illusion, is a delusion
and the idea that the Self is something real and permanent
is also a delusion.
However, to ponder over these things is a waste of time.
The world is in total chaos and disorder,
war, pollution, exploitation, starvation, religious madness…
And you care only about your Self.
You should ask yourself if you have been fooled
or if you have fooled yourself.
It is the earth that is turning.
And rainbows do not exist
if no one is there to behold them.
Things are not what they seem to be.
You are not what you think you are.
We have misunderstood and misinterpreted most things in life.
I don’t write these words.
Scientists have discovered that the brain processes that trigger an action
for example, when I am pressing a key on a key board,
begin more than half a second before I consciously decide to act.
We have no free will according to modern brain science.
We have no Self that is responsible for our actions.
Nevertheless, you can see the rainbow clearly
and it goes without saying that you are accountable for your actions,
the whole of you, not just the imaginary part of you that you call your Self.
Of course we have a free will.
We can easily be deluded, yes,
and other people can stop us from doing what we want,
but the will is there and it is very real.
The Self does not exist in the same way that physical objects exist.
It cannot be weighed or measured.
Activity in certain brain centers can be measured, when we do something,
think about something or look at something.
However, there are no particular brain cells
that gives rise to the sense of “I am here”.
The self is like a rainbow
and rainbows do exist.
The idea that the Self is an illusion, is a delusion
and the idea that the Self is something real and permanent
is also a delusion.
However, to ponder over these things is a waste of time.
The world is in total chaos and disorder,
war, pollution, exploitation, starvation, religious madness…
And you care only about your Self.
You should ask yourself if you have been fooled
or if you have fooled yourself.
You should ask yourself why you are fighting so hard to defend your delusions.
You should ask yourself why other people are fighting so hard
to defend their delusions.
Your religion is not the only religion here on this planet.
Your political ideology is not the only one.
You should ask yourself why other people are fighting so hard
to defend their delusions.
Your religion is not the only religion here on this planet.
Your political ideology is not the only one.
What if your religion or your political ideas are just mind stuff
that you have picked up from other people.
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