Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.
“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it,” he said.
That is hardly a new thought. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, as Einstein paraphrased it, that “a human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants.”
Today my guest is Mike Arnold aka Dharma Mike. He says that the idea that there is no free will stopped working for him after a while and explains what he lies awake worrying about. We also talk about:
I’ll apologize in advance for the poor sound quality on this show. I think I moved away from the microphone a couple of times to read stuff on the screen and it caused problems. Well I WOULD apologize, except I don’t have free will so… nothing I could do about it I guess. :-)
Want to come on the show? Now you can. Here’s how it’s going to work.
Step 1. I will post up the future schedule (a few weeks in advance) to a Google Calendar. You can view it here.
Step 2. If you want to come on any particular episode, look to the associated post up on the Advaita Forum. A link to the forum will be in each calendar entry so it should be pretty straightforward.
Step 3. Reply to the forum post for the episode you want to join, with your name, Skype ID and the topic you’d like to discuss.
Step 4. When it comes time to record the show, we’ll hook you in via Skype!
Hopefully that isn’t too hard to follow. Hit me up here with any questions.
Well it’s been six weeks, but Steve and Cam are back to talk about nothing, this time over Skype. I’d love to tell ya that there are some real gems of wisdom in this podcast, but I’d be lyin’. It’s just the appearance of two guys talking.
For the next show, if you want to ask some questions, we’d be happy to not answer them for you. As you know, we don’t claim to know anything. Except that “truthiness” is the best idea ever and that Spinoza was probably right.
Want to come on the show? Now you can. Here’s how it’s going to work.
Step 1. I will post up the future schedule (a few weeks in advance) to a Google Calendar. You can view it here.
Step 2. If you want to come on any particular episode, look to the associated post up on the Advaita Forum. A link to the forum will be in each calendar entry so it should be pretty straightforward.
Step 3. Reply to the forum post for the episode you want to join, with your name, Skype ID and the topic you’d like to discuss.
Step 4. When it comes time to record the show, we’ll hook you in via Skype!
Hopefully that isn’t too hard to follow. Hit me up here with any questions.
We’re back! Well kinda sorta. I’m hanging out in Carmel, California with my peep Steve Witt (who was on the show back in January) and he WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT ADVAITA so I thought I might as well turn the microphone on and record some of it. We’ve been laughing so hard about the whole thing it’s been a lot of fun. So there is no Bob on this show, no Eliot, nobody who is enlightened, nobody who has “the understanding”, nobody at all in fact. Just a couple of dudes, sitting drinking tequila, having a laugh.
I’m going to be in San Fran for the next few weeks. Any of you in that general area who want to catch up for a coffee let me know! You can reach me on my email or my US cell 310 9900666. I also need a sofa to sleep on! :-)
I’m sorry you missed the party. We had fun. But if you’re just discovering the show, you need to start at the beginning. Here’s a link to the first episode. If you start there and work your way forwards, you’ll see the same questions and the same themes emerging over and over. So then, by the time you get to the end, you’ll understand why I’m laughing most of the time at the questions. It wasn’t because I’m insensitive (necessarily) but because the questions had been answered over and over and I thought it was extremely funny that we kept getting asked the same stuff.
Just an update folks. I spoke to Bob for the first time in four months yesterday and asked him if he was interested in starting the show again. He said something like “It’s just the same questions from the same people over and over again.” So I guess that’s a no. You can always go over to his site and buy the recording of his weekly sessions on CD. We might do a some kind of special monthly show or something. I don’t know. I might even do the show by myself and impersonate Bob’s voice, kind of like the way the US government has someone pretend to be bin Laden on those videos that come out every time they was to scare us all again…. all I’d need to do is say “Who’s asking the question?” and I doubt any of you would be able to tell the difference. Come to think of it, I could just splice in recordings of his voice from previous shows. Hmmm… I can see this turning into a very long franchise. :-)
I’m starting to miss the show, so I thought I’d throw up a new forum for people to leave questions. If it looks like we’re getting enough interesting ones, I’ll see if Bob wants to put together the team for another episode.
