the village idiot

Somewhere between 7 and 0.5 seconds apparently. You can put a person in a brain scanner with an option of two buttons to press (left and right). The person viewing the scan can predict with 80% accuracy which button the subject will press up to 7 seconds before the subject reports being concious of making the decision! This finding destroys the notion of free will for me. As we develop better brain mapping techniques it is very likely that the 80% will rise to 100%.

Not at all! I'm sure that could do it. The interesting thing is so could eating a piece of cheese if you get your brain lined up properly!

It is well worth taking note of these experiences as it shows conclusively that these 'states of being' are possible. They have the intrinsic nature of being extremely pleasurable and I would argue are a big part of why we fall in love with certain things. The context in which you have this experience is very relevant. If you experience Self transcendence whilst riding a motorbike you fall in love with motorcycling. If you experience it whilst praying to God (a common occurance) you fall in love with God. Or more specifically, whichever God you have been pointed in the direction of. My point is that these experiences are readily available to everyone but they have been hoovered up and branded as sacred by the World's religions. It is time we claimed them back.

I would agree that in the moment you couldn't have written anything other than the post you did. My hope is that the reaction of others will permeate into your brain, help balance out the assumptions and conditioning, and if we are lucky will spew out some gold in some time to come.

You may well have experienced the state of pure conciousness for brief moments whilst snowboarding or skiing if you are well practiced. It is the feeling of there being no seperation between 'you' and the activity. There is only snowboarding. You are not judging or correcting, everything seems effortless and you are just experiencing. You have transcended the Self! It is a wonderful experience and it is totally possible to train the brain to inhabit this space much more of the time. Some people have reportedly managed to transcend the Self permenantly. I personally am agnostic about these claims, but see no reason why it shouldn't theoretically be possible.

Great post! Where I would disagree with you is in assuming that our desire to override our 'animal nature' is a demonstration of free will. This desire is as much a result of our unconcious brain processes as anything else. It is a good one that should be reinforced. Nothing much changes in the way we deal with people's harmful actions if we reject the concept of free will. We need to protect society from bad brains. Any bad act would be viewed as a symptom of a mental 'illness' and whilst we would still need to lock people up, the emphasis would shift from punishment to trying to find an effective treatment. I see no reason to hypothesise the existence of a higher power. If a higher power bestowed upon us free will and then we use this free will to conclude that the higher power doesn't exist, this is the fault of the higher power. To punish people in hell for exercising free will would be obscene. This is a bit of a moot point as I don't think you are refering to our traditional sense of an Abrahamic God. What we do have is the ability (through practice) to tap into the experience of pure conciousness. A state in which to see the world as it truly is without the polluting influences of the constructed 'self'. This is a hugely liberating space in which to spend time. Pure conciousness is certainly a mystery, we suspect it arises from the state of our brains, but we don't yet know. Perhaps there is a 'higher power' at work but there is absolutely no reason to assume this, and many good reasons to reject it. Your experience of prophecy is very interesting and it would be cool to drill down on exactly what is going on there. It is always worth keeping in mind though that we can't always trust our thoughts and intuitions. I of course include my own in this! My brain is telling what I assume to be me that we are drifting somewhat off the point of the post. A bad habit which I shall attempt to prevent in the future by putting in place strategies that hopefully make it less likely to occur in the future! Perhaps these discussions are best held in a seperate thread?

This will sound like complete claptrap but I think it is more accurate to view fat people as unlucky rather than as people who are making bad choices. It is rather unsettling, but as we find out more about the brain and it's processes it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no such thing as free will. It feels very much like we can freely choose from a variety of options in any given moment, but the fact of the matter is that our brains produce a directive up to seven seconds before we are conciously aware of making a decision. Our actions are pre-determined by our brains (which we didn't pick). We do not choose to do things in the way we think we do. Despite appearances, we are not in control. Our brains, shaped by our genes and our environment, lead us through life unconciously and our thoughts- also generated unconciously by the brain- scrabble to keep up and make sense of it all.) It gets even spookier and more un-intuitive than that. It is now widely accepted among neurosientists and psychologists that our sense of self (the feeling of being an unchanging 'I' or 'me' situated in our heads, experiencing the world and located somewhere behind our eyes) is also an illusion, generated by our brains to help us get by in the world. This is an incredibly difficult concept to get your head around, I understand it logically but it is really hard to map it onto our day to day experiece, mostly because the perceived sense of self (and it's partner in crime-free will) are so strong and we reinforce them constantly. There are however various ways to demonstrate that all is not as it seems. If you are able to accept that free will and the sense of self are illusiory it radically changes your perception of things, particularly in terms of how you judge other people, their actions and most importantly...you. Fat people are ultimately the victims of circumstances over which they had no concious control. As are we all. This is not to say that people can't change. Brains can be influenced by all manner of inputs which can affect behaviour. The perspective shift is to realise that in a fundamental way the 'person' is not responsible. Blame the brain. Notice your shift in perspective when you hear about Gary's sister's thyroid condition. The nature of our brains in any given moment is entirely analogous to this. Thyroid function is controlled unconciously by the brain, as are all human functions and thoughts. Have a think about all this over the Christmas break, It's a confusing wild ride which can connect you more positively to all sentient beings including the one you call you!

You can always spot an amateur. They never bring a big enough saw for the job!

That makes sense in a utopian, small scale setting. But what would happen if there were three neighbouring villages (1,2 and 3). You are happily living in village 1 and everything is fine. But one day village 3 attacks village 2, burning all their houses and crops leaving them helpless and asking your village for sanctuary? Village 3 then also starts launching small attacking raids on your village. This is more like the real world, and things start getting very complicated.

The root problem with terrorism is not immigration, it is dangerous ideologies. How you screen people for dangerous ideas and intent is a real problem. Closing the borders will not stop terrorism. It may shift some of the deaths to another country, but then you have to start asking yourself soul searching questions like ' Why exactly does it matter so much more to me when British people are killed as opposed to equally innocent people living in another country'? This is a difficult and controversial question, but one that is interesting to ponder.

In other words: "many Somalians etc are decent people" but we can't help these people because some other Somalians etc are bad people?

You are hardwired to think in terms of groups/populations, rather than of people as individuals. I would argue that this clouds your judgement. Does the fact that no-one on this forum holds the same broad brush, us and them view as you not give you pause for thought? It makes sense to control who comes into the country, but it is wrong to use country of birth as the filter.

Have you ever tried putting yourself in other peoples shoes? Let's say you didn't have the luck that you had. You have the same drives and ambitions to do well for yourself but you happened to be born in Syria rather than the UK. Your business premises have been bombed and your family has all been killed by government troops. If you made any attempt to 'build your country up' you would be shot. "I know" you say, "I've got nothing left and there's nothing I can do other than make a terrifying journey to the West and try to piece some kind of life back together. The people who were born there have the wonderful opportunity to make something of themselves. If I stay here I have two options, misery or death." You get yourself to Calais and contact the British govt asking for asylum and help. "Sorry Old Bean" they say. "You were born in Syria weren't you? Only people who were born in good 'ol Blighty, or other countries we've decided we like can have access to our opportunities. You Syrian's have nothing to offer the West. Go back and make your own country better." How would you feel?

You and Trump certainly appear to think the same way (although it seems increasingly likely that Trump doesn't really think much beyond himself at all) It seems ludicrous to me that you should limit a person's opportunity to move around the Earth based purely on their nationality. How can this position be defended when you think about it in any depth?

Agreed. This is a problem on both sides of the coin. In our current state of civilisation (Split into different countries and cultures), if one wants to move from one culture to another, or finds themselves born into a minority culture there has to be a concerted commitment to causing no harm and an openess to considering the different ways to live.

If you boil it right down we are in fact all equal. Inequality arises from differences in opportunity and circumstance. We don't pick our parents, our genes, what country we were born in, what religion our parents choose to pass on etc etc. Without wanting to get down a metaphysical rabbit hole, we don't even pick the thoughts that enter our conciousness. I agree that we are not equal in outcome, but in my view it is wrong to feel entitled to a better culture at the expense of others. We absolutely need to protect ourselves from bad and destructive ideologies. Border control is obviously a part of this, but we need to be very careful with blanket labelling of peoples as intrinsically better or worse.

The sticking point is when particular human beings assert that they are 'better' when the vast majority of the circumstances that led to their position were completely out of their control. Living in peace is impossible whilst people cling to their luck through of a misguided sense of entitlement.

"We need to talk about Kevin!"

Death of his beloved mother sends 'rocket man' Elfton John back to the bad old days.

Great stuff! Wish the trees in my Wood would grow like that. Can't remember the last dead straight, non-leaning tree I felled.

Very good of Jon to erect the Mendips Christmas lights this year.

Last week I spent a couple of minutes yanking on a hazel branch that hung itself up in an Oak. I walked away admitting defeat, only to turn around to see my apprentice sprint towards it and dive (superman style) into the offending stick. He successfully freed the hazel but the landing was somewhat less impressive than the dive. He came down on a freshly cut hazel stool, bruising several ribs. Thankfully I cut my stools flat so we had a painful laugh rather than a punctured lung to contend with!

Woodland trees, some very large coppice, some maidens. I'll put the tape around some next week.

Got a lot of big Ash to fell in next two months in South Suffolk if you wanted to come have a look?