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Buddha: “Resting in the Peace of Immortality”

March 5, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 08-30-07: The title above is a quote from the Buddha, and I read it this morning in Marvin Minsky's latest book, The Emotion Machine. If you're at all interested in how your brain works, what makes your … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: brain, Buddha, consciousness, evolution, Marvin Minsky, reality, The Emotion Machine, universe

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

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

The Beauty of Things as They Are; Reality vs. Fantasy

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-12-07: I'm just getting around to the Fall, 2006 issue of Tricycle, and I find two articles with apparently similar but actually opposing views. One is called "Letting Go," by Judy Lief—a worthwhile … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: acceptance, anxiety, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist, fantasy, happiness, imagination, insecurity, pot, reality, Tricycle

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.

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