Libet gave participants of his experiments a simple task, while measuring their brain activity: they had to decide to flex a finger whenever they wished, and note the position on a fast-moving clock at the precise moment they took the decision.
The result was that the brain showed activity at least 400ms before the participants became aware of their “decision making.”
“RP” stands for “Readiness Potential,” that is, the supposed build-up in brain activity before the decision to act and the subsequent action. What we see is that this brain activity starts before the participants became aware of their intention to flex the finger.
The results have led the no-Free-Will crowd to [falsely] exclaim, “see, everything is driven by your brain, and you taking decisions is just an illusion!”
However, this seems to be a typical case of taking something very specific and isolated out of context and then drawing conclusions based on existing biases.
The exercise of free will in basic FIML is done during the “Readiness Potential” period described above. FIML done with a partner is an exquisite exercise of free will that completely changes how we speak and listen for the better. FIML is somewhat difficult because it requires being aware of the Readiness Potential period close to its onset. But this can be learned with practice. Buddhists or others who practice mindfulness may find this part of FIML to be rather easy. From this point of view, FIML can be described as mindfulness shared by two people, or pair-work mindfulness. FIML mostly focuses on interpersonal speech and listening but also includes all other interpersonal semiotics. More posts related to FIML and brain science can be found here. ABN
Over the last half-dozen years I’ve regularly cited the work of John Beaty, a respected academic who spent his entire teaching career at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
During World War II, Prof. Beaty served in Military Intelligence and his responsibilities included producing the daily intelligence briefing reports distributed to the White House and the rest of our top political and military leadership. That position provided him with a unique perspective on the entire course of the conflict.
After the end of the war, he resumed his academic career and in 1951 he published The Iron Curtain Over America, a book harshly critical of our government policies and the overwhelming Jewish influence that he had believed was responsible. He argued that Jewish domination over the publishing industry and the media had grown so powerful that most ordinary Americans never learned many important facts, with their dangerous ignorance maintained by the “Iron Curtain” of Jewish media control described in his title.
Exhibit N – Engineering Analogous to a Sextant – In practice, the foreman would take the shaft ceiling stone upon which the star map was marked, align the bottom center of the stone with the celestial north pole in the sky, and then ensure that the center of the stone matched exactly the azimuth and altitude of the celestial pole itself – in this manner, aligning the next day’s work (as well as the shaft) to true north. The stone had to bisect the north sky horizontally so that the altitude of the celestial north pole could also be shot, along with its azimuth. If the foreman used an 8 inch mirror fit into the shaft itself, this would in essence be analogous to a sextant.
The fact that all four of these shafts initially run at odd angles to the celestial north pole, thereafter reattaining the altitude and azimuth discipline in each case, indicates just how important this alignment was to the function of these shafts. They were not air shafts (despite our employment of that name at times herein). The copper fittings in the sealing stone were not for dropping the stone into place, as every stone in the pyramid had to be dropped into place, yet none of them used such labor intensive through-stone-fittings. Nor are the fittings placed at the right center of gravity to afford such a function. These were copper cables, for which we previously had no theory regarding their purpose—that is until now.
This form of evidence is indeed inductive, nor do I believe that the builders constructed two of the shafts while underwater during the counter-alignment. That issue is tactical, non-critical-path, and is resolvable by a number of plausible means. Dismissing the observation as defacto irrelevant—when in fact, the stone depiction is salient—perpetuates the linear induction or Nelsonian Ignorance Trap approach to science that we criticized at the outset of this article. Science is stuck in that trap regarding the Khafre and Khufu pyramids, in desperate need of disruption and paradigm shift. We are introducing a hypothesis, not another ‘perfect answer’ for a new doctrinal set of beliefs. If a priori perfect answers were the standard, the current consensus would have never survived to be considered in the first place.
The star map exists, the stone exists, the shafts exist, the shafts point at celestial north, Khafre is clearly differentially-damaged by ocean water inundation, the Tura casing stones are completely gone from both Khufu and Khafre except for above the water level, the carbonic-acid-dissolved residue of those stones was found at their bases. An official narrative must definitively explain (not simply inductively dismiss or ignore) these critical path elements, or that Narrative is pseudo theory, no matter how many experts revere it.
However, setting aside the debate over the possible date range for the stone star depiction, one fact remains unmistakably clear:
The shaft that was aligned by means of this celestial north star map today points toward Giza’s southern sky.
Above in an excerpt from an essay by The Ethical Skeptic which claims that two of the pyramids in Egypt were constructed ‘around 9200 to 9600 BCE‘ and were intended to be a warning to future generations that the earth’s angle of rotation has changed abruptly in the past and will do so again, leading to massive flooding across the globe. The essay is well-worth reading. ABN
The Supreme Court said Monday that it would not hear former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s appeal of his second-degree murder conviction in the May 2020 death of George Floyd.
Chauvin was found guilty by a state court in April 2021 and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison in connection with Floyd’s May 25, 2020, death, which triggered riots across the country and a prolonged debate on race relations in America.
Chauvin, 47, is also appealing his conviction and 21-year sentence on separate federal charges in connection with Floyd’s death. Those punishments were not considered by the high court.
Last week, Russian media took note of the latest provocative statements by Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. She has led Russia’s tiny Baltic neighbor into a firm hawkish anti-Moscow position. The country was part of the wave of eastern European nations to join NATO in the mid-2000s during the Bush era.
She’s calling for the breakup of the Russian Federation. Kallas proposed during a debate in the country’s capital of Tallinn last week that Russia could become much “smaller” as a desired outcome of the Ukraine war.
“Russia’s defeat is not a bad thing because then you know there could really be a change in society,” the prime minister told the 17th Lennart Meri Conference, as translated in Russia’s RT.
She said that currently the Russian Federation can actually be seen as making up “many different nations” and that they could be naturally broken into separate states.
“I think if you would have more like small nations… it is not a bad thing if the big power is actually [made] much smaller,” Kallas asserted.
There is no rational reason for Estonia and the other Baltic states to provoke Russia. They are behaving like US/NATO puppets, their leaders bribed & blackmailed. Estonia, with a population of 1.4 million, is playing the fool, along with Latvia and Lithuania. Having failed to broker their geographical and historical positions into a bridge between Russia and Europe, they are now provoking their own annihilation and possibly much worse. ABN
‘I’ve seen so many soldiers thinking they’re mentally ill and I tell them, “No you were injured.”’
Sergeant Nicholas Ranstad was twenty minutes into a nap when his spotter woke him up.
Four Taliban fighters were 1.28 miles away from the hut where the Army specialist sniper was living in Kunar Province in northeastern Afghanistan.
If the insurgents had looked more carefully, they would have seen white marks on boulders beside them. Randstad, a 28-year-old Florida native, had been using them for target practice for weeks.
Now, however, his AK-47-wielding target could shoot back while they were surveilling the U.S. traffic checkpoint.
Nick Ranstad set up on top of a Afghanistan Border Patrol (ABP) hut and got into the prone position.
He peered down his scope, and got the precise distance from his spotter Alex Simpson: the enemy was 6,778ft away – 22 football fields. It was an immense distance for any marksman.
He tried to reduce his heartbeat by taking slow, deep breaths, then pulled the trigger, unleashing a round traveling at almost 3,000ft per second.
New Hampshire Republicans advanced legislation Friday that would eliminate all exceptions to the state’s voter ID law.
House Bill 1569 would require anyone who shows up to register to vote on Election Day to provide proof of citizenship through documents such as a birth certificate or a passport.
“Confidence in our elections means that you have found that the person that confronted you, asking you for that ballot is qualified to vote. They are a citizen,” said state Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary will seek to opt out of any NATO operations aimed at supporting Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday, suggesting that the military alliance and the European Union were moving toward a more direct conflict with Russia.
“We do not approve of this, nor do we want to participate in financial or arms support (for Ukraine), even within the framework of NATO,” Orbán said, adding that Hungary has taken a position as a “nonparticipant” in any potential NATO operations to assist Kyiv.
“We’ve got to redefine our position within the military alliance, and our lawyers and officers are working on … how Hungary can exist as a NATO member while not participating in NATO actions outside of its territory,” he said.
Orbán, said he doesn’t share the concerns of some other Central and Eastern European countries that Russia’s military wouldn’t cease its aggression if it wins the war in Ukraine.
After it was revealed that Attorney General Merrick Garland, the FBI and DOJ added language to their search warrant permitting the FBI to use deadly force against President Trump and/or his security detail during the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, President Trump responded with shock.
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to amend the bail conditions for President Trump on Friday night. Prosecutor Smith wants Judge Cannon to forbid President Trump from talking about the FBI agents who conducted the armed raid and used the search warrant. [PDF Court Motion Here]
There is a profound irony in Jack Smith seeking to block President Trump from talking about the FBI conduct, as the former president’s remarks might create “misleading impressions” about the details of the raid. The DOJ and FBI have been leaking “misleading impressions” to the media for almost 9 years about the FBI operation investigation of Donald Trump.
For nine years, more than 40 highly political assigned FBI agents have been fabricating stories and leaking them to the media; yet, it is President Trump who the DOJ worries might create “misleading impressions.” The issue would be farcical if the lying FBI topic was not so serious.
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