The Short Version

Love, Life, Meaning, Zen, and Science, by Norm Bearrentine

  • Home/Blog
  • Live With Beauty
  • Norm’s Books
    • High School Zen
    • Free Will, the Self, and the Art of Cunnilingus: One Guy’s Tumble Toward Reality
  • Light & Dark Inc
  • Norm’s Photos

Powered by Genesis

Response to Sam Harris’ Podcast with Robert Sapolsky

August 16, 2017 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

There are black people who hate white people, there are white people who hate black people, and both got their hatred through the same mechanisms: biology and culture—no one has free will. No one is ultimately to blame for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2017 Tagged With: emotions, free will, happiness, hatred, meditation, rationality, Robert Sapolsky, Sam Harris

Review of Daniel Dennett’s, From Bacteria to Bach and Back

May 25, 2017 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Dennett has ideas about what human beings are and what they are capable of that he wants desperately to maintain against all science and logic. He wants to believe—and wants to convince us—that we are capable of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2017 Tagged With: Bayes, brain, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, free will, Mind

Review of Daniel Dennett’s Elbow Room

May 23, 2017 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

(I wrote this review in 2010, but never got around to posting it here. He published a more recent edition in 2015 that I may review at some point; there were many issues I didn't get to in this one.) This book reminds me … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008, 2017 Tagged With: Daniel Dennett, determinism, free will

Review of Sam Harris’s Waking Up

September 12, 2014 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Sam did a great job of dealing with the complexities of free will in his book by that name, but in Waking Up he is writing about consciousness and the self, which are altogether more difficult subjects, and he flounders. Like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2014 Tagged With: brain, Buddhism, consciousness, Eckhart Tolle, free will, Jean Klein, Sam Harris, self, the present moment

Who is the Magician? Tricks of the Brain

March 5, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 08-21-07: An excellent article in the New York Times today, "Sleights of Mind," by George Johnson. It covered several topics of great interest in understanding human experience: "...the cognitive … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: awe, cognitive principles, free will, human experience, illusion, Michael Gazzaniga, narrowness of perception, reality, sensory, truth

Who’s in Charge, Redux: Our Lack Of Free Will

March 5, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 07-31-07: There's a fabulous article in the New York Times today, called "Who's Minding the Mind." Many people, including me, have been saying this for years, and the science has been accumulating: the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: awareness, brain, conscious control, free will, illusion, Mind

The Final Chapter? No Free Will: The End of Guilt and Pride

March 5, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-29-07: I finally finished nibbling away at Po Bronson's book, What Should I Do With My Life? and I think this post may finish my comments on it. There is a story near the end about a guy whose … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: AA, apology, brain, free will, guilt, Po Bronson, responsibility, suicide, twelve steps

But What Is Real? The Limits of Perception/Conception

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-19-07: I ended yesterday's post mentioning the importance of distinguishing fantasy from reality, which brings up a really big question: What is reality? Which reminds me of the current installment … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: complexity, free will, humor, illusion, language, perception, reality, reality-tunnel, Robert Anton Wilson, sensory, suffering, Tricycle

What’s the Point? Language In Perspective

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-11-07: To continue with yesterday's topic. If all the people who are saying, "Stay in the moment," are really saying, "Don't verbalize," what's the point? Our use of language is a major part of being … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: brain function, causality, choice, conditioning, free will, identity, language

Buddha the Scientist; Faith vs. Free Will

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted 05-09-07: I was re-reading the Summer, 2006 issue of Tricycle the other day, and found myself annoyed, again, by an article by Thanissaro Bhikkhu called "Faith in Awakening." What provoked me was this, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: brain function, causality, conditioning, free will

What This Site Is About

When I realized that the idea of god was a joke, I thought that was the end of the story. Later I found that Christianity had shaped my values, and while some were worth keeping, many had lost their foundation—the meaning of life, for example. Something similar happened when I realized that the idea of free will was a joke, and I’ve spent the decades since both those realizations discovering and editing what Julia Galef calls the “orphan beliefs” they left behind. It’s a tricky business, and this blog has been a chronicle of my efforts to puzzle it all out, including reviews of related books. I hope you find it helpful.

Categories

Tags

AA (4) Antonio Damasio (2) attention (4) awareness (2) awe (2) brain (17) brain function (2) Buddha (4) Buddhism (5) Buddhist (6) causality (2) choice (1) complexity (2) conditioning (2) consciousness (7) control (2) Daniel Dennett (3) decisions (3) depression (2) Douglas Hofstadter (2) free will (10) happiness (2) ignorance (3) illusion (3) Jean Klein (2) language (3) meditation (6) Michael Gazzaniga (2) Mind (2) mistakes (2) Naturalism (2) perception (5) Philip "Wylie (2) pot (2) reality (4) responsibility (2) Sam Harris (3) science (2) self (3) sensory (3) suffering (2) thoughts (2) Time (2) Tricycle (5) Zen (3)

Archives