Category Archives: Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will

Not Longing For Anything To Be Different

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Dave Pollard

(This chart is yet another attempt to create a model of how human conditioning works. This article is focused on the fourth example — situations that make us long for what we believe and imagine “could be”, or what we … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

In Critical Condition

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Dave Pollard

Many of my articles on free will and non-duality argue (perhaps obsessively) that: All human behaviour is (no more and no less than) the biologically and culturally conditioned response of our bodies to the circumstances of the moment. There is … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will | 8 Comments

The Devil You Say

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Dave Pollard

This is a work of fiction. image by Sammy Sander on pixabay — free for use under their content licence I went in search of the Devil. Surely, I thought, there must be someone to blame for this mess. At … Continue reading →

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Unreal

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Dave Pollard

This is a work of fiction. ai generated image by pixabay contributor anyamaya; free to use under pixabay’s content licence It was about that time that she realized that she liked her imaginary friends better than her real ones. They … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will | 4 Comments

Nothing Is Required

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Dave Pollard

comic by Reza Farazmand Nothing is required for things to appear exactly as they appear. Time is not required: for time is just something we imagine because we can’t make sense of everything-only-apparently-happening all-at-once. Causality and consequence are not required: … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will | 2 Comments

What We Say and What We Do

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Dave Pollard

Yep, that annoying graphic again. If the subject of free will and conditioning doesn’t fascinate you, give this post a pass. There is something terribly counter-intuitive about the idea, contained in the above graphic, that while our behaviours can condition … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments

The Nature of the Beast

Posted on June 1, 2024 by Dave Pollard

This post concerns and describes situations and events that may be disturbing to some readers.  The graphics in this post, like all original content on this blog, is covered by a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence Over the last … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 3 Comments

A Dragon, Several Stories High

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Dave Pollard

This is #30 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk, hike, and explore in my local community. a children’s book about the dangers of ignoring a problem … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Month-End Reflections | 3 Comments

What Just Apparently Happened

Posted on May 21, 2024 by Dave Pollard

The ‘model of reality’ referred to in this article is shown in blue on the diagram above. So ‘I’ apparently ‘wake up’. A conditioned series of biological responses increases the blood flow to certain parts of this body and brain, … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 4 Comments

Happiness is Just Chemistry, and Its Absence

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dave Pollard

(like everything on my blog, my graphics are covered by Creative Commons licence) What is it about us that we never seem to be happy, at least for long? What does it even mean to be happy? There have been endless studies … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | Comments Off on Happiness is Just Chemistry, and Its Absence