Free will or lack of.......

[Mortimer Firewood]

4 hours ago, WesD said:

Ok so my meditation session was .... interesting. 

 

I tried to meditate like explained concentrating on your breathing. 

 

I kind of struggled to maintain concentration on breath as thoughts on other things kept trying to ruminate, you said this would happen so after 5 minutes of back and forth to the breath I actually give in to the thoughts and let them flow concentrating on letting them happen without interruption and wow what a busy place the brain is very receptive to anything we do or in this state don’t do. It was far more relaxing being a passenger to the thoughts without trying to stop or control them than it was to keep concentrating on the breath as every time you think or hear something you break concentration so to speak to go back to the breath it’s quite a bit of work. 

 

It was was much easier to become lost and a passenger to my thoughts and let it happen then muse it all over after I had finished. Very relaxing process. 

 

Ill try the breath each thing again but will probably revert back to the relax process I fell on. 

If you keep trying the breathing exercise it will come.

 

Vary the length and depth of the breath.

[the village idiot]

7 hours ago, WesD said:

Ok so back to free will, everything we do is based on our brains guiding us via past experiences and best guessing based on experiences we have previously had but once we have to make a decision does our brain do the maths and we chose the most favourable hence no free will or do we still get the choice to go against that and chose the option we believe to be the least favourable can that be perceived as free will or did our brain know we would choose that and give us the pat on the back anyway at which point if that is the case surely our computer is selling us short?!  

 

In a coin toss what if when the coin was in the air you merely didn’t call? Kind of like green on the roulette wheel? So while the coin is in the air your brain is working out options based on the info and it knows based on the info and past experiences it’s 50/50 so does it pick for you or let you choose as it doesn’t matter it’s 50/50 if it’s the latter then it could be perceived we have free will (granted when it doesn’t matter). 

 

What if if we are lead down the garden path by our super computer but when we get to the end if the odds are 50/50 choice is ours?

 

After all even computers have glitches. 

Using the coin toss again if I toss that coin 10 times using past experiences and information we know it’s 50/50 so one would think what you choose is irrelevant however if you decided on heads you’d pick that for all 10 coin toss’s However in practice that is never the case people swap and change trying to beat the odds so to speak. Is that free will or our brains if it’s our brains we are rather inefficient as we know probability and should stick with heads if we go against that is it free will?

 

Deep. 

Hi Wes,

 

From my persective, the reason why you are struggling with ironing out these issues (and they are bloody mind boggling) is because you are still occasionally holding onto the notion that there is a 'self' in the mix. Some sense of a chooser located in the head or brain that has the power to assess the brain's outputs and make some form of informed choice.

 

Please correct me if I have misrepresented you.

 

My argument is based around the premise that although it feels absolutely that there is a 'chooser' that is 'me' in the head, this is actually not the case in reality. The sensation/felt experience that there is a chooser muddies the waters when trying to get to grips with this stuff.

 

I think the brain, from which all our thoughts, emotions, impulses and actions arise is a 100% automatic, identityless computer composed of neurons. It takes in unchosen inputs from the senses, processes them automatically, and automatically generates outputs based on its pattern recognition software. A small proportion of those outputs (the ones we call thoughts) appear in conciousness. Automatic thought outputs themselves become inputs back to the brain for the next phase of continuous processing.

 

Conciousness is the only other facet to the autonomous brain. Conciousness or awareness is an identityless space where some brain outputs (thoughts) appear. Conciousness is 100% passive. It can do nothing to summon, choose or change it's contents. It is just aware of them. 

 

This is all there is, a fantastically capable, identityless automatic computer and a 100% 'hands off' state of awareness. Nothing else, no chooser, no locus of 'I'. Insights from mindfulness meditation practice strongly support this conclusion too.

 

The automatic brain, sometime in early childhood, starts to attach 'I' files to thought emails and sends them to the conciousness inbox (which opens them but takes no action) From this point on humans begin to experience a contrived awareness that they are a 'me'.

 

In other words, You are a figment of your computer's imagination!

In terms of the coin toss. Even though it is 50/50, the brain doesn't delegate a choice to a 'you'. It will come up with its own answer based on hidden processing using some unfathomable blend of past experiences, neuro transmitter saturation, stored memories of consequences of similar past experiences and all manner of other factors. It will then alert your conciousness of the 'decision' and instruct your vocal chords, lungs and oral muscles to articulate it's commandment.

  This makes it sound like the brain has an agenda, but it all blind automation, producing the only result it can given everything that has happened to it up to that point in it's existence, the existence of all it's ancestors, and potentially (if you want to be exactly precise) anything that has happened anywhere to anything in the universe ever!

Consider that next time you blurt out heads or tails.

 

 

The brain is 'supposed'  to develop the illusion of self. The tendancy for it to develop would have been naturally selected for (also automatically) way back when, because it helped us survive to reproductive age in more hazardous times.

 

 

 

 

[the village idiot]

11 hours ago, WesD said:

Ok so my meditation session was .... interesting. 

 

I tried to meditate like explained concentrating on your breathing. 

 

I kind of struggled to maintain concentration on breath as thoughts on other things kept trying to ruminate, you said this would happen so after 5 minutes of back and forth to the breath I actually give in to the thoughts and let them flow concentrating on letting them happen without interruption and wow what a busy place the brain is very receptive to anything we do or in this state don’t do. It was far more relaxing being a passenger to the thoughts without trying to stop or control them than it was to keep concentrating on the breath as every time you think or hear something you break concentration so to speak to go back to the breath it’s quite a bit of work. 

 

It was was much easier to become lost and a passenger to my thoughts and let it happen then muse it all over after I had finished. Very relaxing process. 

 

Ill try the breath each thing again but will probably revert back to the relax process I fell on. 

Fantastic Wes!

 

That almost sounds too good to be possible! Next time you meditate try to pay really close attention to whether you are being carried off by your thoughts or whether you truly are able to just be aware of them without you being carried off. The distinction is very important. 

 

If you are truly able to do the latter (to be aware that you are thinking) you are a natural born meditator and that is a huge advantage.

 

See if you are able to describe the nature of a thought to yourself as soon as it arises in conciousness, then observe what happens to the thought.

[the village idiot]

12 hours ago, Vespasian said:

Moment of clarity..

 

In those experiments on free will, might we be reading those ECG's wrong....   what if they're not evidence of the brain manipulating events but of the mind seeing events?...  

 

Its a pretty weak argument I know, but still...

 

Let me explain...  lets say that the brain has seen what you are going to do, those brain waves are at some unfathomable level working it out.. the brain has figured out your next move half a second before you act..

The next question should that be true is is the mind capable of seeing future events in other scenarios?..  we've all had that experience of thinking of an old friend we hadn't seen in years and later that day or hr bumped into them.. perhaps the brain knows we're gonna be seeing them shortly and has prepped the conscious mind for whats about to take place by putting into our conscious mind thoughts related to that future encounter..

 

perhaps the mind is much more attuned than we think, and here and there it lets you know how much more powerful than you that it is...

 

Yesterday I was looking at two words and had to look up their proper definitions in an online dictionary.. having mused on their meaning for a while I put the matter to bed.. sometime later in the day, I was wondering what to watch next and was led from one utube vid to the next eventually landing on some black comedian an earlier vid had promoted me to investigate..

 

I clicked on the vid but skipped the first five minutes as thats usually the introductions, and low and behold the very first two words out this fella's mouth were the ones I'd earlier been ruminating on..  I was a bit taken aback but then I remembered those ECG experiments..

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, those experiments weren't exposing evidence of brain manipulation but insight...   intuition.. perhaps the mind can see much further into the future than we can imagine...

 

 

Perhaps those spooky moments in life are the dark side of the brain throwing you a bone..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is one heck of a theory Vesp, and there's no way for I can prove for definite whether you are right or wrong.

 

It is certainly possible that the brain could predict certain events in the future using the information it has been exposed to in the past. The key phrase here is 'information it has been exposed to'. I see no way that the brain can make accurate specific predictions on outcomes necessitating information that it has not yet been exposed to, unless by chance.

 

I think it's very likely that the two words event was an impressive coincidence. It is theoretically possible that the brain could have computed and predicted every tiny action in sequence leading up to you skipping the video to the exact point you did from it's inputs in the past, but this would be an astronomically gargantuan mental achievement. But again theoretically possible.

 

It is well worth considering how many trillion times this 'clairvoyant' effect doesn't happen. This leads me to conclude the coincidence hypothesis, but who knows?

 

It's a very interesting idea.

[the village idiot]

16 hours ago, Billhook said:

I like Chalmers idea of consciousness as a fundamental.

 

 

I watched Vespacian's "Mind over Masters" and the Sam Harris videos.

I am not convinced that the experiment which appears to show that we have no free will is valid.  The fact that your mind knows the answer before the fact becomes apparent to everyone else could be due to other factors, such as accessing the quantum in a way not understood at present.  This does not mean that you have no free will.

If consciousness is like a giant internet which soaks up every conscious thought that there ever has been, and you have found access to this "internet" by say meditation, then you could appear to see the future.  Perhaps not actually seeing the actual future but seeing a series of  events that would lead you to believe in a very likely result.

 

Take this website as being a tiny example.  You all have found access to this information by having a computer, an internet server, a code and an identity for this forum.  A modern form of going into a meditative trance!

 In the primitive world, as a Bushman, an Aborigine or a Red Indian  might induce a trance before they go off hunting for water or bison to gain similar information from the fundamental  consciousness.  They then go off on their search looking for signs to guide them.  Signs that they may have seen in their "dream"

 

I could post on here that "Billhook will be sitting under Nelson's Column at Midday on Sunday December 31st"

There is a strong possibility that you would see me there on the day, and that is the most likely scenario, but I may have been involved in an accident on the way so it did not happen.

In the same way in these experiments the mind of the volunteer has assessed the most likely outcome rather than actually seeing the future.

I remain a POSSIBILARIAN at heart but I am heading towards free will which is guided by a greater consciousness which has grown up alongside the life force, both of which came into being by random activity rather than intelligent design.

What a fantastic video Billhook, I hadn't seen that one, thanks hugely for posting it up.

 

I am fairly open minded in terms of the origin of conciousness. I'm pretty sure that there are some very specific theories that we can rule out, but beyond that it is a fascinating mystery at the moment.

 

It's got a bit late now, but I'll have a ponder on the rest of your post and try to give some thoughts tomorrow. Apologies, I have been working my way up the list from the bottom and you were at the top!

[WesD]

2 hours ago, the village idiot said:

Hi Wes,

 

From my persective, the reason why you are struggling with ironing out these issues (and they are bloody mind boggling) is because you are still occasionally holding onto the notion that there is a 'self' in the mix.

I wouldn’t say struggling more like exploring. I have to start with a little about my personality I have to break things down and truly understand the inner workings before committing myself to the cause, I can’t go completely from what others say I need to really buy into it to believe by exhausting both sides of the equation. 

 

This usually starts like this thread I fall upon something of interest and explore internally first then when I’m ready externally. As of yet I have done no such research or watched any of the videos posted because well that is their understanding of the subject I need to make my own first without delving deeper. 

 

I do have an open mind I’m yet to be decided on this. 

 

Ill also make it known my mind is in an excellent place and I am not drinking whilst the wife is pregnant, it’s been a long 7 months. (Is that free will?) 

2 hours ago, the village idiot said:

 

 

 Some sense of a chooser located in the head or brain that has the power to assess the brain's outputs and make some form of informed choice.

 

Please correct me if I have misrepresented you.

 

As above. 

2 hours ago, the village idiot said:

My argument is based around the premise that although it feels absolutely that there is a 'chooser' that is 'me' in the head, this is actually not the case in reality. The sensation/felt experience that there is a chooser muddies the waters when trying to get to grips with this stuff.

 

I think the brain, from which all our thoughts, emotions, impulses and actions arise is a 100% automatic, identityless computer composed of neurons. It takes in unchosen inputs from the senses, processes them automatically, and automatically generates outputs based on its pattern recognition software. A small proportion of those outputs (the ones we call thoughts) appear in conciousness. Automatic thought outputs themselves become inputs back to the brain for the next phase of continuous processing.

It’s strange you believe there is no self yet start your 2nd paragraph with I think. 

 

Could it it be possible that a large portion of what you say is true and yes the processes are automatic but we still need some steering, more to follow...

 

2 hours ago, the village idiot said:

 

Conciousness is the only other facet to the autonomous brain. Conciousness or awareness is an identityless space where some brain outputs (thoughts) appear. Conciousness is 100% passive. It can do nothing to summon, choose or change it's contents. It is just aware of them. 

 

This is all there is, a fantastically capable, identityless automatic computer and a 100% 'hands off' state of awareness. Nothing else, no chooser, no locus of 'I'. Insights from mindfulness meditation practice strongly support this conclusion too.

 

The automatic brain, sometime in early childhood, starts to attach 'I' files to thought emails and sends them to the conciousness inbox (which opens them but takes no action) From this point on humans begin to experience a contrived awareness that they are a 'me'.

 

In other words, You are a figment of your computer's imagination!

Every thought is derived from a sense, be it sight, sound, touch, smell or taste. 

Next time you meditate your using the sound of your breaths to relax yet whenever you break from concentration concentrate on that thought it will stem from a sense ie a noise, if you hear a car that’s what your thought will be then you’ll break that thought to go back to breath. 

 

Now that backs up what you say it’s an automated system we heard the car our brain confirmed it from past experience BUT think of the next time you plug some headphones in and listen to your iPod did your brain need that or did you want that. You can choose to expose your sight to a film our brains don’t need that or necessarily crave it. We have to eat yet we don’t eat the same food constantly. 

2 hours ago, the village idiot said:

 

 

In terms of the coin toss. Even though it is 50/50, the brain doesn't delegate a choice to a 'you'. It will come up with its own answer based on hidden processing using some unfathomable blend of past experiences, neuro transmitter saturation, stored memories of consequences of similar past experiences and all manner of other factors. It will then alert your conciousness of the 'decision' and instruct your vocal chords, lungs and oral muscles to articulate it's commandment.

  This makes it sound like the brain has an agenda, but it all blind automation, producing the only result it can given everything that has happened to it up to that point in it's existence, the existence of all it's ancestors, and potentially (if you want to be exactly precise) anything that has happened anywhere to anything in the universe ever!

Consider that next time you blurt out heads or tails.

 

 

The brain is 'supposed'  to develop the illusion of self. The tendancy for it to develop would have been naturally selected for (also automatically) way back when, because it helped us survive to reproductive age in more hazardous times.

 

 

 

 

Now using hazardous times is a great start as that says our brains or automated computer helped us survive and evolve and I have no doubt in that however if we had no free will we would continue on this path but we ain’t we are kind of self destructing why would our brains want us to over indulge with food say which leads to type 2 diabetes or smoke 20 a day which can lead to cancer or lie on a sunbed under some tubes for a tan at the potential cost of again cancer etc etc etc

 

Can we say that our computers are decolving and choosing options to shorten our lifespan based on information received at which point it isn’t learning, or progressing us like it has in the past or do us humans have some choice when we get to the end of that garden path we have been lead down? .....

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, WesD said:

I wouldn’t say struggling more like exploring. I have to start with a little about my personality I have to break things down and truly understand the inner workings before committing myself to the cause, I can’t go completely from what others say I need to really buy into it to believe by exhausting both sides of the equation. 

 

This usually starts like this thread I fall upon something of interest and explore internally first then when I’m ready externally. As of yet I have done no such research or watched any of the videos posted because well that is their understanding of the subject I need to make my own first without delving deeper. 

 

I do have an open mind I’m yet to be decided on this. 

 

Ill also make it known my mind is in an excellent place and I am not drinking whilst the wife is pregnant, it’s been a long 7 months. (Is that free will?) 

 

As above. 

It’s strange you believe there is no self yet start your 2nd paragraph with I think. 

 

Could it it be possible that a large portion of what you say is true and yes the processes are automatic but we still need some steering, more to follow...

 

Every thought is derived from a sense, be it sight, sound, touch, smell or taste. 

Next time you meditate your using the sound of your breaths to relax yet whenever you break from concentration concentrate on that thought it will stem from a sense ie a noise, if you hear a car that’s what your thought will be then you’ll break that thought to go back to breath. 

 

Now that backs up what you say it’s an automated system we heard the car our brain confirmed it from past experience BUT think of the next time you plug some headphones in and listen to your iPod did your brain need that or did you want that. You can choose to expose your sight to a film our brains don’t need that or necessarily crave it. We have to eat yet we don’t eat the same food constantly. 

Now using hazardous times is a great start as that says our brains or automated computer helped us survive and evolve and I have no doubt in that however if we had no free will we would continue on this path but we ain’t we are kind of self destructing why would our brains want us to over indulge with food say which leads to type 2 diabetes or smoke 20 a day which can lead to cancer or lie on a sunbed under some tubes for a tan at the potential cost of again cancer etc etc etc

 

Can we say that our computers are decolving and choosing options to shorten our lifespan based on information received at which point it isn’t learning, or progressing us like it has in the past or do us humans have some choice when we get to the end of that garden path we have been lead down? .....

 

Brilliant!

 

I love the fact that you and others are willing to think so deeply on this. I'll try and give you my take on these observations tomorrow, or rather later today!

And when I say 'I'll' or 'I', it is totally understandable that this creates apparent problems with the argument. Unfortunately it is a language conundrum that there is no good way around. If 'I' started refering to 'myself' as an entity instead it would probably be the end of the thread!

[the village idiot]

Before I carry on attempting to field your really interesting questions, and with Mortimer Firewood's heroic fortitude in mind, I thought it might be a good idea if I explain exactly why I keep blathering on about Mindfulness meditation and 'the self'. What has it done for me, and why I consider it to be so important?

 

I am 40 years old and for all of my adult life I have suffered from depression. It crept up on me over a long period of time so I didn't really understand what was going on. I now understand that my brain neurons soak up seratonin more quickly than the average person. This means that it is not sloshing around between the cells for long enough to trigger the healthy number of happy and generally productive thoughts that most people experience. On average, my thinking is more negative than it could be. If this carries on for an extended period of time it slowly poisons all aspects of your life.

 

I once heard someone say that depression robs you of the ability to appreciate sunsets. This is by far the best description of my version of the illness I have ever heard. It is spot on.

 

Without wanting to bore you all with a bleeding heart story, the long and the short of it is that my inability to think positively a lot of the time, and my lack of insight into the mechanics of the condition very nearly ruined me. I had a wonderful partner for 22 years who I ended up telling to leave me to find someone else better. I really believed that I wasn't good enough for her. We split up, the house was sold and I moved into a rented room. I was thoroughly miserable.

 

I had done a little bit of meditation a couple of years before after reading some books which sparked my interest. The practice seemed to help but I didn't understand why and I soon stopped doing it and fell back into my old patterns.

 

I encountered Sam Harris around this time through his books on the dangers of religion (a topic I have always been interested in). He is unusual amongst the athiest community as although he is brutally secular he is also an experienced meditator and I moved onto reading what he had to say about this. Sam Harris is a brilliantly clear communicator and one short sentence in one his books jolted me into a different perspective.

 

"You are not your thoughts"

 

This was huge for me, and I started reading everything I could find online and in books on meditation, buddhism and the odd vaguely understandable book about neuroscience and psychology. 

 

Finding out more about how the brain functions and the implications of how it operates made a massive difference in my understanding of my own situation. Combining this with the theory that 'the self' is a mental construct caused everything to click into place.

 

I can now pretty confidently say that I have depression but I very rarely suffer from it. Just being aware of the fact that the brain conjures up thoughts automatically implicitally implies that they can't necessarily be trusted, especially if coming from a brain that can't function normally. Internalising this simple fact alone was enough to revolutionise my outlook, this was the big breakthrough. Combining it with the concept that I could be automatically attributing my negative thoughts to an idea of an unchanging 'me' upped the ante even further. The proposal that I was not truly free to have done anything else made things even more interesting.

 

I can appreciate that to another person this might sound like I have just bought into an idea and latched onto it in desperation because it offered me a lifeline. Hope and desire are very powerful drivers that can take people in very strange directions. It is certainly possible that this is what I've done, but I really don't think so. When you learn more about the brain, how we know it operates and how we think it might manifest itself, it is all pretty darn logical if rather brain bending to get to grips with.

 

I restarted mindfulness meditation practice fairly recently, mainly as a means to see if these ideas hold up in direct experience. If we really want to know how the mind does it's thing it makes sense to watch it in action. Mindfulness meditation is tricky because if you engage in it with a particular goal in mind you corrupt the practice. You are thinking about the goal instead of merely watching what thinking appears naturally. I need to get better at the practice if possible, but if you can retain focus for long enough you quite quickly come to realise how insane the brain outputs are. It is really no wonder that we suffer if we let these bizzare brain belches guide us through life.

 

My brain is seratonially compromised so it is probably particularly important for me not to identify with a lot of my thoughts too closely, but from what I have read it transpires that everyones brains are pretty much constantly putting thoughts out there, a lot of which are intrinsically unhelpful, and if they are allowed to fester and form the narrative of who you are, can cause considerable amounts of needless suffering.

 

This really is the take home message here. If you feel that you have depressive tendencies, are critical of yourself and/or others, find life a bit unfulfilling, struggle in certain situations or just get a bit cross about things, mindfulness practice and an understanding of what your brain is up to can almost certainly help make your life better and may be transformational.

 

The added bonus is that if you care to you can go on to explore the nether regions and start to spout crazy sounding nonsense like I have been over the last couple of days!

 

Really hope this helps.

 

TVI.

Edited December 30, 2017 by the village idiot

[Mortimer Firewood]

3 hours ago, the village idiot said:

Before I carry on attempting to field your really interesting questions, and with Mortimer Firewood's heroic fortitude in mind, I thought it might be a good idea if I explain exactly why I keep blathering on about Mindful meditation and 'the self'. What has it done for me, and why to I consider it to be so important?

 

I am 40 years old and for all of my adult life I have suffered from depression. It crept up on me over a long period of time so I didn't really understand what was going on. I now understand that my brain neurons soak up seratonin more quickly than the average person. This means that it is not sloshing around between the cells for long enough to trigger the healthy number of happy and generally productive thoughts that most people experience. On average, my thinking is more negative than it could be. If this carries on for an extended period of time it slowly poisons all aspects of your life.

 

I once heard someone say that depression robs you of the ability to appreciate sunsets. This is by far the best description of my version of the illness I have ever heard. It is spot on.

 

Without wanting to bore you all with a bleeding heart story, the long and the short of it is that my inability to think positively a lot of the time, and my lack of insight into the mechanics of the condition very nearly ruined me. I had a wonderful partner for 22 years who I ended up telling to leave me to find someone else better. I really believed that I wasn't good enough for her. We split up, the house was sold and I moved into a rented room. I was thoroughly miserable.

 

I had done a little bit of meditation a couple of years before after reading some books which sparked my interest. The practice seemed to help but I didn't understand why and I soon stopped doing it and fell back into my old patterns.

 

I encountered Sam Harris around this time through his books on the dangers of religion (a topic I have always been interested in). He is unusual amongst the athiest community as although he is brutally secular he is also an experienced meditator and I moved onto reading what he had to say about this. Sam Harris is a brilliantly clear communicator and one short sentence in one his books jolted me into a different perspective.

 

"You are not your thoughts"

 

This was huge for me, and I started reading everything I could find online and in books on meditation, buddhism and the odd vaguely understandable book about neuroscience and psychology. 

 

Finding out more about how the brain functions and the implications of how it operates made a massive difference in my understanding of my own situation. Combining this with the theory that 'the self' is a mental construct caused everything to click into place.

 

I can now pretty confidently say that I have depression but I very rarely suffer from it. Just being aware of the fact that the brain conjures up thoughts automatically implicitally implies that they can't necessarily be trusted, especially if coming from a brain that can't function normally. Internalising this simple fact alone was enough to revolutionise my outlook, this was the big breakthrough. Combining it with the concept that I could be automatically attributing my negative thoughts to an idea of an unchanging 'me' upped the ante even further. The proposal that I was not truly free to have done anything else made things even more interesting.

 

I can appreciate that to another person this might sound like I have just bought into an idea and latched onto it in desperation because it offered me a lifeline. Hope and desire are very powerful drivers that can take people in very strange directions. It is certainly possible that this is what I've done, but I really don't think so. When you learn more about the brain, how we know it operates and how we think it might manifest itself, it is all pretty darn logical if rather brain bending to get to grips with.

 

I restarted mindfulness meditation practice fairly recently, mainly as a means to see if these ideas hold up in direct experience. If we really want to know how the mind does it's thing it makes sense to watch it in action. Mindfulness meditation is tricky because if you engage in it with a particular goal in mind you corrupt the practice. You are thinking about the goal instead of merely watching what thinking appears naturally. I need to get better at the practice if possible, but if you can retain focus for long enough you quite quickly come to realise how insane the brain outputs are. It is really no wonder that we suffer if we let these bizzare brain belches guide us through life.

 

My brain is seratonially compromised so it is probably particularly important for me not to identify with a lot of my thoughts too closely, but from what I have read it transpires that everyones brains are pretty much constantly putting thoughts out there, a lot of which are intrinsically unhelpful, and if they are allowed to fester and form the narrative of who you are, can cause considerable amounts of needless suffering.

 

This really is the take home message here. If you feel that you have depressive tendencies, are critical of yourself and/or others, find life a bit unfulfilling, or just get a bit cross about things, mindfulness practice and an understanding of what your brain is up to can almost certainly help make your life better and may be transformational.

 

The added bonus is that if you care to you can go on to explore the nether regions and start to spout crazy sounding nonsense like me over the last couple of days.

 

Really hope this helps.

 

TVI.

Keep on using thesa big words and I might have to start googling them??

[the village idiot]

1 minute ago, Mortimer Firewood said:

Keep on using thesa big words and I might have to start googling them??

 Apologies! I had the input of an English literature A level, and I don't appear to have the free will to squash it!