text:
Malapert, I think Andy lives in Germany. Do you know how that will affect his need to get permission from those forum writers in other countries who might be reluctant to hand over their words to him?
Not much. Copyright law is fairly universal, certainly in the EU and other western countries. There's a Wikipedia article on the subject. Money quote:
Copyright laws are standardized somewhat through international conventions such as the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. These multilateral treaties have been ratified by nearly all countries, and international organizations such as the European Union or World Trade Organization require their member states to comply with them.
Living in Germany is one thing; living in Argentina is another.
Copyright is naturally a difficult issue. That is precisely why I have shown you a preprint (not for redistribution) first, to allow you to react and check whether what I say bothers you at all.
The script will hardly be a best-seller, so the commercial aspect is irrelevant here. As an essentially academic work, it enjoys the same right to "fair use" of the words of others as any work that includes extensive citations from various sources for the purpose of airing the subject, whatever it is.
I shall not publish the book commercially before others, especially Sam Harris and the On Faith moderators (and of course Soia), give their OK. Naturally, I don't want to offend anyone unduly, and I have edited the words in the script to reduce that risk. If anyone has a problem with a few words anywhere, please explain.
My aim here is to ensure that our collective efforts here on this forum result in something more that zilch.
I make a brief appearance as Mr. "Head". I would consider anything I posted on Andy's threads to be fair game and since my remarks are used outside of their original context, I prefer the anonymity of being named after one of my favorite movies.
I haven't consumed all of Andy's stuff but if I were to point out a reoccurring flaw, it is exemplified here:
My aim here is to ensure that our collective efforts here on this forum result in something more that zilch.
For whom, pal? For me and perhaps other Harris posters, our collective efforts have already resulted in much more than zilch. But thanks, for sure.
For what it's worth, you have my permission to use Mr. Head as currently conjured in your pdf on this date.
For me and perhaps other Harris posters, our collective efforts have already resulted in much more than zilch. But thanks, for sure.
For what it's worth, you have my permission to use Mr. Head as currently conjured in your pdf on this date.
Thanks, Nhoj. As you see, I'm not the most diplomatic guy in the world. It was truly an awesome experience to enjoy the constructive and passionate feedback you and the others have given me over last year on this thread. Without your help, my draft for a book on all this would probably still be a mere dream. If all goes more or less smoothly to complete this project, I shall be grateful to you all beyond everyday measure. However, there is a risk with a forum like this that the wider world is ignored and denied the benefit of anything more than zilch in return for the natural resources consumed. Not that a book from me makes much difference, of course, but it does prolong the hope that something more than our own mutual arousal may be excited.
Just a note about attribution: It looks as though it won't be possible to be orderly about it, as the manuscript has been fictionalized in the sense that it's not only a transcription/editing of comments and questions from various forum contributors. For instance, on MS page 185, Jesu says something that I wrote in reply #116 of the thread titled: First post, introduction and invitation.
It's good for my ego to see my comments fictionalized, though I don't think I'll read the entire manuscript. At least not for a while.
Since my goal here was to enlighten the world, I consider having more people hear my wisdom a good thing. You have my AKA Dude's permission to use my wise words in your book. And I would like a signed copy.
I shall not publish the book commercially before others, especially Sam Harris and the On Faith moderators (and of course Soia), give their OK.
You have my permission, except that I want you change my name from "Bubba" to "Mr. Stud."
Copyright is naturally a difficult issue. That is precisely why I have shown you a preprint (not for redistribution) first, to allow you to react and check whether what I say bothers you at all.
Nice backbepdal, but of course the correct thing would have been to ask permission BEFORE working everyone's comments into this "book".
My aim here is to ensure that our collective efforts here on this forum result in something more that zilch.
And naturally this could only occur through the efforts of Andy Ross. Everyone's supposed to be grateful, y'see?
By the way, you might want to check into getting someone to edit this mass of words into coherency. I've only glanced at it, and that's partly because it's virtually impossible to sort out how everyone relates to "On Atheism" and this blog and so forth.
Also, some posters are apparently composites, some are quoted verbatim under names you invented, some are fictional, and some are real people quoted by their real names. It would be helpful to clarify that.
It's also so choppy in the way you've divided it into various dialogues (apparehtly). Is that really necessary?
Thanks for all the feedback. I've changed "Bubba" to "Studs" (one word only) and re-attributed the mentioned homunculus text from Jesu to Unk. I've also revised a few words and trimmed a few paragraphs. These changes will be visible in the next PDF (to be generated next week, perhaps). All this is routine editing and will go on for a long while yet.
To be clear, what I posted was a just a raw draft, a working folder of my own stuff for my own archive, that just seems (to me in my fondly self-regarding way) to be a sufficiently brilliant contribution to philosophy as to deserve some sort of publication in some such form. I know full well that any publisher will demand cuts, revisions, and further efforts to seek permission (for example from Bruno Barnhart, to recall just one name).
Whether the script makes it through the ordeal is of course moot. At worst, I just have a relatively neat archival document for the redactors of my literary corpus in the post-mortem future.
Thanks for all the feedback. I've changed "Bubba" to "Studs" (one word only) and re-attributed the mentioned homunculus text from Jesu to Unk. I've also revised a few words and trimmed a few paragraphs. These changes will be visible in the next PDF (to be generated next week, perhaps). All this is routine editing and will go on for a long while yet.
To be clear, what I posted was a just a raw draft, a working folder of my own stuff for my own archive, that just seems (to me in my fondly self-regarding way) to be a sufficiently brilliant contribution to philosophy as to deserve some sort of publication in some such form. I know full well that any publisher will demand cuts, revisions, and further efforts to seek permission (for example from Bruno Barnhart, to recall just one name).
Whether the script makes it through the ordeal is of course moot. At worst, I just have a relatively neat archival document for the redactors of my literary corpus in the post-mortem future.
Hi Andy (J Andrew Ross author of Godblogs…)!
I'm honored that you would select some of my comments from the On Faith Forum on The Washington Post from the threads of Jon Meacham and Sam Harris for your book, Godblogs. Since I blogged under my real name, please include my name exactly as I posted there: Soja John Thaikattil, Sydney, Australia. Since you are a Scot living in Germany writing a book with material taken from blogs on an American newspaper, I wish to have my location in far away Sydney, Australia, specified just as I did on the blogs. You are free to edit my sentences for clarity and style, if you choose. Please let me know when your final draft is ready so that I could go through the comments of mine that you have included and let you know if I should desire to have anything corrected or deleted in case I should find anything incorrect or inappropriate.
Even after the blogs on The Washington Post are long gone, your book will remain. Hence I wish to have my posts remembered, if they are remembered at all, under my real name as I posted them on The Post.
As a relevant aside: When my only letter to the editor of the New York Times was published on 10 December 2006, in accordance with their policy, my location, Sydney, Australia was published along with my full name. Of course they also got my consent about the exact wording of the letter before they published it.
Please do not attribute to Soja/Soja John Thaikattil, what was not posted in that name, as you have done with
material taken from this blog even though there are no posts under the name of Soja/Soja John Thaikattil.
Many thanks in advance.
I wish you great success with your book!
Best wishes
Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia
I'm honored that you would select some of my comments from the On Faith Forum on The Washington Post from the threads of Jon Meacham and Sam Harris for your book, Godblogs. Since I blogged under my real name, please include my name exactly as I posted there: Soja John Thaikattil, Sydney, Australia.
Thank you, Soja. I shall give your full name and location in the introduction and specify that all interjections from "Soja" are to be attributed to you.
You are free to edit my sentences for clarity and style, if you choose. Please let me know when your final draft is ready so that I could go through the comments of mine that you have included and let you know if I should desire to have anything corrected or deleted in case I should find anything incorrect or inappropriate.
Thank you again. As suggested by the work so far, I shall quote relatively brief parts from your posts, some of which were rather long, but I shall take care to reflect the general sense of your statements correctly.
Please do not attribute to Soja/Soja John Thaikattil, what was not posted in that name, as you have done with
material taken from this blog even though there are no posts under the name of Soja/Soja John Thaikattil.
All your posts on this blog I shall attribute to the name "S***" (three letters to be decided, suggestions welcome) and make no claim in the book as to their connection with the Soja of the first part. Forgive me for being slow to revise te script. I have decided that a second edition of my book "Mindworlds" (with four essays removed, four new ones added, and two chapters rewritten, as well as revised notes and references) is more urgent and will take all the free time I have for a while. Meanwhile, my SAP work must have first priority or I risk losing my job in these troubled times!
For my first post I would like to mention a discussion that I overheard between two participants (which I have edited for clarity):
It strikes me that materialism is self-refuting. Materialism is an idea - it cannot be reduced to a particular arrangement of matter. Yet it is an idea that denies that there is anything more than matter, hence that ideas don't exist. Therefore it denies the existence of itself. Hence it can be dismissed as really rather dumb.
Anyone who can say that a thought is a state of the brain and no more must be extraordinarily lacking in insight. How can matter be 'about' something? Matter just is what it is. Such a person either must deny that a thought has content (neatly refuting his own arguments) or he has to admit that matter is not just matter but has an 'interior' aspect. If so, then materialism is no simple solution but a 'weird' philosophy that thinks everything is conscious. That might well be true, but I doubt the average materialist believes that.
The more one considers what consciousness is, and what the sense of being a self is, the harder it becomes to comprehend. To say consciousness simply 'is' matter is just incoherent.
I suspect that that, properly considered, consciousness alone is all the evidence needed to demonstrate that this is a meaningful transcendent reality.
The reply…
I do not think your anti-materialist argument is valid, because if I understand contemporary materialism, which asserts that there is not ideas but all ideas exist as entities in a physical support such as a brain, a piece of paper, a disk, etc. The materialism that denies the existence of separate ideas of any material support, as denying the existence of separate minds of any material support. The problem is that this last statement does not exclude the possibility of the afterlife, because after death, our mind can be a material vehicle other than an organic body that can continue [c.f. survive, at least in part] with some of its functions, which makes the afterlife compatible with materialism. The materialists will say however that there is no evidence that material vehicles exist, but this is simply false by the evidence recorded by parapsychological research.
On the other hand, the argument about the intentionality seems to work, because materialists have only two options: either to consider intentionality as an illusion, and then sinking all thought including speeches about materialism, or consider that the intetionality is an inherent property of certain materials structures such as nervous system, but then that is no longer matter. I think the solution is to become aware that we are moving in two very different conceptions of the world but that it's also necessary to understand the reality: the naturalistic conception, resulting from the study of nature and where there is not intentionality, and the mentalist conception, the result of the interaction between humans and where there is intentionality.
I later overheard a follow-up:
"Nothing bypasses the brain. Identity, personality and behaviour are all absolutely implicated in what it does. If the brain is damaged, one or more of these will be compromised.
It does not follow, however, that physical brain functions are the ultimate source of these things. No matter how successfully we correlate brain states with mental states, that's all we have - increasingly detailed and suggestive correlations. To argue that a correlation demonstrates fundamental cause is absolutely unwarranted."
Quite correct. However, [the author of the above quote] does bypass the fact that many believers in dualism have very definite ideas about the nature of the soul. These beliefs are explicitly and implicitly expressed in the many books dealing with near-death experiences. Not surprisingly, these same beliefs are echoed in the holy texts of many religions. But as yet no-one has successfully applied these definitions to definitively disprove or prove the reality of a soul or of some sort of controlling extracorporeal conscious mind.
This made me wonder… if it is understood that the only real proof of survival would be to die and 'see' for oneself,
1) How would one know without a material vehicle for memory storage?
2) What material vehicle exists to explain patients with a flat-EEG implying isoelectric brain activity and no means of electrically recording or receiving any mental data?
Monitoring of the electric activity of the cortex (EEG) has shown ischaemic changes consisting of a decrease of fast high amplitude waves and an increase of slow delta waves, and sometimes also an increase in amplitude of theta activity, progressively and ultimately declining to isoelectricity. More often initial slowing (attenuation) of the EEG waves is the first sign of cerebral ischaemia. The first ischaemic changes in the EEG are detected an average of 6.5 seconds after circulatory arrest. With prolongation of the cerebral ischaemia always a progress to an isoelectric (flat) line is monitored within 10 to 20 (mean 15) seconds from the onset of the cardiac arrest (3-6).
In cardiac arrest global anoxia of the brain occurs within seconds. Timely and adequate CPR reverses this functional loss of the brain because definitive damage of the brain cells, resulting in cell death, has been prevented. Long lasting anoxia, caused by cessation of blood flow to the brain for more than 5-10 minutes, results in irreversable damage and extensive cell death in the brain. This is called brain death, and most patients will ultimately die.
In acute myocardial infarction the duration of cardiac arrest (VF) on the CCU is usually 60-120 seconds, on the cardiac ward 2-5 minutes, and in out-of-hospital arrest it usually exceeds 5-10 minutes. Only during threshold testing of internal defibrillators or during electro physiologic stimulation studies will the duration of cardiac arrest hardly exceed 30-60 seconds.
From these studies we know that in our prospective study of patients that have been clinically dead (VF on the ECG) no electric activity of the cortex of the brain (flat EEG) must have been possible, but also the abolition of brain stem activity like the loss of the corneareflex, fixed dilated pupils and the loss of the gag reflex is a clinical finding in those patients. However, patients with an NDE can report a clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity, and memory from early childhood was possible, as well as perception from a position out and above their "dead" body. Because of the sometimes reported and verifiable out-of -body experiences, like the case of the dentures reported in our study, we know that the NDE must happen during the period of unconsciousness, and not in the first or last second of this period.
So we have to conclude that NDE in our study was experienced during a transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the brainstem. It is important to mention that there is a well documented report of a patient with constant registration of the EEG during cerebral surgery for an gigantic cerebral aneurysm at the base of the brain, operated with a body temperature between 10 and 15 degrees, she was put on the heart-lung machine, with VF, with all blood drained from her head, with a flat line EEG, with clicking devices in both ears, with eyes taped shut, and this patient experienced an NDE with an out-of-body experience, and all details she perceived and heard could later be verified. (8)
So if there is plainly loss of brain function wherein experiences are reported by 'I's, and the only vehicle known to us capable of recording an idea such as 'I think' or 'I am/I exist', is OUT OF COMMISSION for the time being… What physical force or process could explain the recording and reception of sense data?
Perhaps a far more important question regards the reaction of a particular skeptic to the startling facts of this study… which looked at cessation of brain function under cardiac arrests. How could this study lead anyone to conclude that an experience during the period of brain cell isoelectricity and indisputably wholesale loss of brain function… indicates that the experience was only material in nature and did not involve ideas? How could anyone conclude that there was a physical process responsible for this experience?
In his "Skeptic" column in Scientific American in March, 2003, Michael Shermer cited a research study published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, by Pim van Lommel and colleagues. He asserted this study "delivered a blow" to the idea that the mind and the brain could separate. Yet the researchers argued the exact opposite, and showed that conscious experience outside the body took place during a period of clinical death when the brain was flatlined. As Jay Ingram, of the 'Canadian Discovery Channel' commented: "His use of this study to bolster his point is bogus. He could have said, 'The authors think there's a mystery, but I choose to interpret their findings differently'. But he didn't. I find that very disappointing" (Toronto Star, March 16, 2003).
Here, Pim van Lommel sets out the evidence that Shermer misrepresented:
I most certainly welcome your comments and answers to these questions and am quite certain that you'll find confirmation of the intimate relationship between loss of brain function and loss of electrical activity in the medical, physiological, and neuroscientific literature.
Dear bl4kjaguar, here is my digest of your long post:
Materialists claim that thought is no more than a state of the brain. For materialists, intentionality is either an illusion or an inherent property of certain material structures such as nervous systems. Ideas and minds only exist in physical systems such as brains and cannot exist outside such systems. An afterlife is compatible with materialism only if our minds can continue after death in a material vehicle other than an organic body.
We need a functioning brain to experience ourselves and our personalities. If the brain is damaged, experience will be compromised. But it does not follow that physical brain functions are the ultimate source of our personal experiences. No matter how well we correlate brain states with mental states, we cannot prove causation from correlation.
Many mind-matter dualists have definite ideas about the nature of the soul. Reports of near-death experiences (NDE) often echo religious scriptures. But no one has yet applied these ideas to prove or disprove the reality of souls or out-of-body experience (OBE).
Medical Evidence For NDEs
Pim van Lommel
Edited by Andy Ross
A near-death experience (NDE) is a reported memory of impressions during a special state of consciousness, including out-of-body experience (OBE), pleasant feelings, and seeing a tunnel, a light, deceased relatives, or a life review.
We performed a study of 344 survivors of cardiac arrest in which 282 (82%) had no NDE and 62 patients (18%) reported NDE. All the patients were clinically dead, unconscious, due to insufficient blood supply to the brain.
The physiological explanation is that NDE is a result of anoxia in the brain, possibly also caused by release of endorphins, or NMDA receptor blockade. A psychological explanation is that NDE is caused by fear of death.
Patients with cardiac arrest are unconscious within seconds. Complete cessation of cerebral circulation is found in cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation (VF). Cerebral ischemia follows anoxia in the brain.
Cerebral function is severely compromised during cardiac arrest and electric activity in both cerebral cortex and the deeper structures of the brain is absent after a very short period of time. EEG monitoring shows ischemic changes consisting of a decrease of fast high amplitude waves and an increase of slow delta waves, and sometimes also an increase in amplitude of theta activity, declining to a flat line. Attenuation of the EEG waves is often the first sign of cerebral ischemia, with the first changes an average of 6.5 s after circulatory arrest. The cerebral ischemia always progresses to a flat line 10-20 s after onset.
In case of a cardiac arrest of more than 37 s, the EEG activity may not return for minutes to hours after the heartbeat is restored, depending on the duration of cardiac arrest, despite maintenance of adequate blood pressure during the recovery phase. Cerebral oxygen uptake may be depressed for a considerable time after restoration of circulation.
Anoxia causes loss of function of our cell systems. In prolonged anoxia, cell death occurs with permanent functional loss. During an embolic event, a small clot obstructs the blood flow in a small vessel of the cortex, resulting in anoxia of that part of the brain with loss of electrical activity. This results in a functional loss of the cortex. If the clot is resolved or broken down within a few minutes, the lost cortical function is restored. If the clot obstructs the cerebral vessel for longer, it can result in neuronal cell death and permanent loss of function of this part of the brain.
In cardiac arrest, global anoxia of the brain occurs within seconds. Timely and adequate CPR reverses this functional loss of the brain by preventing permanent damage to the brain cells. Long lasting anoxia, caused by cessation of blood flow to the brain for more than 5-10 minutes, results in irreversible damage and extensive cell death in the brain. This is called brain death.
In our study, the patients had EEG flat lines and loss of brain stem activity. Yet the NDE patients reported a clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity, and memory from early childhood was possible, as well as an OBE. Evidence suggests that the NDE must happen during the period of unconsciousness, and not in the first or last second of this period.
The current medical consensus is that consciousness is the product of the brain. But this concept has never been scientifically proven. Research on NDE pushes us to the limits of our medical concepts.
For decades, researchers have aimed to localize memories inside the brain, so far without success. At least we know that different mental activities give rise to changing patterns of activity in different parts of the brain. Neurophysiologists show this using EEG, MEG, MRI, and PET technologies. An increase in cerebral blood flow is observed during thinking.
Most body cells, and especially all neurons, show an electrical potential across cell membranes, formed by the presence of a metabolic Na/K pump. Information is transported along neurons by means of action potentials, which are differences in membrane potential caused by synaptic polarization and depolarization. The changing potentials cause transient electromagnetic (EM) fields along the dendrites. The transient EM fields generated along the dendrites are crucial. They are shaped into briefly meaningful patterns that fluctuate over the neurons and over the entire cortical neuronet. This process can be considered as a biological quantum coherence phenomenon.
The influence of external localized EM fields on these constant changing EM fields during normal function of the brain is well explored. Researchers use TMS, which uses a localized EM field, to excite or inhibit different parts of the brain. They investigate the function in focal brain regions on a millisecond scale to study the contribution of cortical networks to specific cognitive functions. TMS can interfere with visual and motion perception by interrupting cortical processing with an interval of 80-100 ms. TMS can also alter the functioning of the brain beyond the time of stimulation. So localized artificial EM stimulation disturbs and inhibits the constantly changing EM fields of neural networks, and can even induce an OBE.
To understand this interaction, consider telecommunications. We live in a smog of EM fields broadcast to transmit information to electronic devices. We only become aware of these EM fields when we use those devices. The devices convert the information from the EM fields to a form we can observe. If we switch off the device, the information disappears from our consciousness but the transmission continues. The information remains coded within the EM fields and can still be received through another device.
Perhaps our brain are also devices for converting EM waves into images and sound. The information fields of our consciousness and of our memories may be present around us as EM fields, which only become available to our consciousness through our functioning brain and other cells of our body. We need a functioning brain to receive information into our waking consciousness. As soon as brain function is lost, our reception is lost. But the memories and consciousness still exist in the EM fields.
Our study shows that patients with EEG flatlines can have an NDE or an OBE.
This digest is also posted on The Ross Blog.The EM story is exactly in line with "the Ross hypothesis" I worked out in the early years of the century and presented at various conferences: see Mindworlds. The NDE and OBE issues are serious ones for science, and have been addressed in detail by many scientists. The best approach may be via my brand of panpsychism.
Now I can see that your blog has a discussion which ends at the opposite place from which it began but is still useful for your synthesis. I am glad to have been of service and will briefly discuss some points from your PDF with a sincere attempt not to reference ideas beyond the basics that we can deduce through this communication medium since it is normal for you to first desire to find the works in which said 'advanced ideas' are present for yourself…
I say the fact that we are driven
by our genes finds its most vivid expression in our subjective mental lives in
spiritual or religious experience – in our awareness and celebration of a
numinous attractor beyond our individual and everyday lives. The experience
or inner phenomenology (autophenomenology, to use Daniel Dennett's word)
of mystic states is evidence for this view. To cut a long story short, I say the
great monotheisms are fertility cults.
I strongly disagree—with progression of time consciousness is elevating itself through the learning process; every day it approaches closer to the numinous attractor WITHIN our individual and everyday lives; the level of awareness required here is fairly high; you will first have to experience a mystic state (a state of unity with Godhead, which is in some manner of speaking, the way things always are for everything) and/or verify the triune nature (personal, impersonal, divine) of monotheisms for yourself if you are to elevate consciousness beyond a Darwinian basis. This is necessary to explain a great many things specific to the afterlife and to enlightenment.
Any expression of faith occurs in a language community and against a set
of shared beliefs and defaults about life and the universe. The faith itself may
be a human universal, hard-wired by genes like the basic emotions, but if so,
it may be so protean that without a culturally determined expression it would
remain unrecognizable.
This is curious because those who are enlightened know for a fact that genes are not what hard-wire emotions but rather that emotions have an energetic nature which does not relate to bodily functions but only to the mind. In fact, the further one is enlightened the greater one can build awareness about subtle emotional bodies and their energetic purpose in relation to communion with the unity creation. A deeper understanding of what it means to express faith is useful here, which is why I am delighted at this passage:
I am sure that this kind of protean faith lies behind
the belief in science of people like Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan, who
were smart enough not only to see the epistemological problems at the
leading edge of science but also to see that only clear thinking based on
honest appraisal of natural phenomena can help us in the long term. In other
words, science done right is a faith too
Which is wise indeed for the future but not really a helpful perspective for our present era. The appropriate faith will gently remind of the unity behind all creation and bring with it the useful and effective techniques necessary for changing one's circumstances by changing one's mind and energetic processes.
[A]theism without science is a leap into the abyss. To deny a
worldview you need a better worldview. Scientists do their level best to stop
scientific doctrines from becoming dogma
A better worldview is that each part of the universe is conscious in its many-parts and yet these arose from a unity whose essence is love. Apparently, 'scientists' and skeptics like Shermer are doing their best to make the dogma of a material mind the basis for the cultural-level discussion, but one needs not know about NDEs to be aware that existence of an afterlife implies lessons to be learned, an order to the rebirthing process, and a being who is not born but manifest and who can guide you on a personal level to assist in your learning. Patriarch Hui Neng discusses this being from the Buddhist point of view (which posits that such a being is fundamentally empty, hence its similarity to monotheism):
"From the point of view of ordinary men," replied the Patriarch, "enlightenment and ignorance are two separate things. Wise men who realize thoroughly the Essence of Mind know that they are of the same nature. This same nature or non-dual nature is what is called the 'real nature', which neither decreases in the case of ordinary men and ignorant persons, nor increases in the case of the enlightened sage; which is not disturbed in a state of annoyance, nor calm in a state of Samadhi. It is neither eternal nor non-eternal; it neither goes nor comes; it is not to be found in the exterior, nor in the interior, nor in the space between the two. It is above existence and non-existence; its nature and its phenomena are always in a state of 'Thusness'; it is permanent and immutable. Such is the Norm."
Xue Jian asked, "You say that it is above existence and non-existence. How then do you differentiate it from the teaching of the heretics who teach the same thing?"
"In the teaching of the heretics," replied the Patriarch, "'non-existence' means the end of 'existence', while 'existence' is used in contrast with 'non-existence'. What they mean by 'non-existence' is not actually annihilation and what they call 'existence' does not really exist. What I mean by 'above existence and non-existence' is this; intrinsically it exists not, and at the present moment it is not annihilated. Such is the difference between my teaching and that of the heretics.
"If you wish to know the essential points of my teaching, you should free yourself from all thoughts, good ones as well as bad; then your mind will be in a state of purity, calm and serene all the time, and its usefulness as manifold as the grains of sand in the Ganges."
Jaguar (ed): As time passes, consciousness is elevating itself through a learning process. Every day it approaches closer to the numinous attractor within our lives. To rise above mundane consciousness, one must first experience a mystic state and verify the triune nature of monotheism.
A: Consciousness operates in time to realize virtual future states in the lived present and then to fix them into place in a layered past that accumulates strata. This is a process I have described elsewhere in physical terms, since it matches well with my ideas about quantum and classical physics. For unknown reasons we see the future states as numinous attractors and feel a passion to approach them or develop toward them. We apprehend a unity in the numinous future, reflecting our own unity as conscious agents. Religious believers may conceive the unity in the terms of monotheism, and may apprehend the choices that unfold layer by layer before them as forming a triune dialectic. The sensed elevation or learning in this process may be an illusion analogous to the hamster-wheel effect, where the poor animal runs as fast as it can to achieve no more than a more rapidly spinning wheel. Perhaps the wheel of karma is analogous here too, and Buddhist meditation the best response.
Jaguar (ed): Those who are enlightened know that emotions have an energetic relation to the mind. The more enlightened one is, the more aware one is of how emotions relate to communion with the unity of creation. A helpful perspective for our present era will gently remind us of the unity behind all creation and develop useful and effective techniques for changing one's mind and energetic processes.
A: Emotions steer people by directing their energies: this seems to be good psychology. To see the growth toward enlightenment as growing awareness of how emotions work and relate to the numinous future seems good too. The unity behind all creation is an achievement of enlightenment that is worth holding up, gently, as worth striving toward for those who have not yet reached so far in their development. Suggesting that this fruit of enlightenment will result in techniques for better control of one's mind and one's energies is excellent, of course.
Jaguar (ed): Each part of the universe is conscious. These parts arose from a unity whose essence is love. The existence of an afterlife implies an order to the rebirthing process, and a being that is not born but made manifest.
A: Scientists are still groping for a concept of consciousness that can be handled using laboratory methods and instruments to make practical progress. But I think the idea that each and every part of the universe somehow participates in consciousness is correct (that's why I started this panpsychism thread). The challenge is to say exactly how that works, and to spell out the practical consequences. As for finding the unity in love, this is certainly attractive from a human perspective. Whatever the ground state of consciousness is, and however it relates to the human karmic wheel of making temporal progress in conscious steps from the past to the future, an acceptance that occupancy of that state feels like love, and veridically so, is not something to deny. But the afterlife story is beyond human compass, by definition, and is better left uncharted here. Skeptical objections clamor for attention, and I for one see no way to refute them, or any particular desire to do so.
Buddhist patriarch Hui Neng (ed): Ordinary men say enlightenment and ignorance are two separate things. Wise men know they are the same. This same nature is neither lesser in ordinary men nor greater in enlightened sages. It is not disturbed by annoyance or calmed in samadhi. It is neither eternal nor temporal. It is not outside or inside, or in between. It is beyond existence and non-existence. It is this. Free yourself from all thoughts, good ones as well as bad. Then your mind will be pure.
A: This seems good, if the truth survives translation and editing. But the message is dismaying. Whatever you think you gain by enlightenment, forget it. Go for a pure mind and start life all over again. Clear your mind and move on. Good advice!


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Recent Press Releases
Volunteers Needed in Nepal for Earthquake Disaster Relief
May 2015
In the wake of last month's earthquake in Nepal on April 25th, Projects Abroad is calling for volunteers to help with its Disaster Relief project. Projects Abroad has worked in Nepal since 1999 and has long-standing relationships with many organisations in Chitwan, Kathmandu, and Ghandruk, especially with schools, children's homes, hospitals, and conservation areas. All have been affected.Read full release »
Keeping Mandela's Legacy Alive
July 2014
Mandela was a man who inspired millions, not only in South Africa, but across the globe, to change the way they think about the world, to change their perspective on race, freedom and living life helping others. This International Mandela Day will be the first that the world will celebrate without this champion of human rights since his passing in December 2013.Read full release »
Projects Abroad Introduces New Volunteer Opportunities
March 2014
Projects Abroad is once again expanding in a number of countries across the globe to give volunteers the opportunity to make a difference and gain experience overseas. With an already vast collection of projects and internships available throughout the world, Projects Abroad is offering new programmes in Jamaica, Tanzania, Fiji, India, and the Philippines.Read full release »
New Volunteer Project Brings Clean Water to Rural Communities in Tanzania
January 2014
Following the success of several Water & Sanitation Projects worldwide, Projects Abroad and partner BridgIT Water are launching new projects in Tanzania this month, where they will continue their international development work to provide safe and sustainable water sources to communities abroad. Two new projects will take place in Tanzania from January to March 2014.Read full release »
Projects Abroad Launches Global Shark Campaign
November 2013
Launched in 18 countries across four continents this month, the Projects Abroad Global Shark Campaign comprises a worldwide awareness and action movement centred on the plight of sharks. The campaign aims to spread the word about the threats to and misconceptions about sharks to as many people as possible across the globe.Read full release »
Projects Abroad successfully reintroduces spider monkeys back into the wild in Peru
June 2013
International volunteering organisation Projects Abroad and their Conservation & Environment Project in Peru releases a group of black spider monkeys back into the wild. PERU - May 27, 2013 - The Projects Abroad Conservation & Environment Project in Peru successfully liberated a group of black spider monkeys (Ateles chamek) back into the jungle.Read full release »
Projects Abroad opens new volunteering projects in the Philippines
May 2013
International volunteer organisation Projects Abroad makes the Philippines a new volunteering destination. International volunteer organisation Projects Abroad is pleased to introduce Cebu in the Philippines to their destination list. Volunteers now have the opportunity to partake in Care, Teaching and Medical Projects in this island destination.Read full release »
Brazil becomes the number one gap year destination for British professionals
January 2012
Brazil has not only displaced Britain as the sixth biggest economy in the world but it has also become the most popular destination for professional Brits volunteering abroad.Read full release »
Appeal for volunteers to dive in to help Thailand
November 2011
While Thailand mops up after months of devastating flooding, groups of British volunteers are cleaning up the beaches and coral reefs and planting mangrove saplings along the south coast of the country, and more are needed to join this worthwhile conservation project.Read full release »
Thailand is just one of the 26 countries serviced by Projects Abroad – the world's largest commercial volunteer organisation – but currently one of the most 'needy' in respect of conservation activities.
Thousands of UK youngsters are heading for the third world
November 2011
High unemployment and lack of university places has driven young Britons to volunteer abroadRead full release »
Many of the 220,000 young Britons who were unable to gain a place at university this year have decided to opt for taking philanthropic volunteering breaks in developing countries instead, according to the world's largest commercial volunteer organisation, Projects Abroad.
What better time to visit the Ancient City of the Incas than on its 100 year anniversary
May 2011
The century anniversary of the discovery of the magnificent city of Machu Picchu in Peru will be celebrated this year on the 24th July. This date marks explorer Hiram Bingham's heroic discovery of the ancient ruins and first bringing the site to the attention of the outside world. The area nowadays is available for all to visit, so anyone can discover the hidden secrets of the Incas and explore its wonderful surroundings.Read full release »
47% of brits believe they are "too busy" to volunteer abroad
March 2011
A straw poll conducted by leading international volunteering company Projects Abroad, has found that the main barrier holding Brits back from volunteering abroad is the required investment in time. Almost half of the Brits polled (47 per cent) say they wouldn't volunteer abroad as they don't believe they have enough spare time.Read full release »
Christ Church University opens inspirational 'Peru' photographic exhibition to the public
January 2011
Broadstairs Campus' University Hall hosts South American themed exhibition.Read full release »
Keen photographer Angela Pitt is currently exhibiting the photographs from her travels in Peru at the Broadstairs Campus of Christ Church University. Following a month-long project with volunteering organisation Projects Abroad, in Taricaya Peru in June 2010, Angela decided to show her fascinating photographs to the public with the hope of inspiring others to follow in her footsteps.
Projects Abroad wins award for 'Community Project of the Year' at the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2010
December 2010
Water sanitation project in Tanzania is recognised as 'best community project'.Read full release »
Projects Abroad, the global leader in short-term overseas volunteer work placements, won the award for Community Project of the Year at the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2010, which were hosted last Wednesday 1 December. The awards are dedicated to internet entrepreneurialism with entries from a number of industries across the web. Projects Abroad won the award for its water sanitation project in Tanzania which took place earlier this summer.
Volunteers Urgently Needed to Teach Teachers in Peru
October 2010
Projects Abroad is appealing for volunteer English teachers to help improve quality of education for Peruvian children.Read full release »
Due to a recent shortage of volunteer teachers in Peru, leading international volunteering company, Projects Abroad is appealing for more individuals to come forward and take part in improving the quality of education for young children living in this incredible country.
Projects Abroad Launches New Cultural Exchange Initiative: Voices of the World
September 2010
Projects Abroad, the leading international volunteering company, is today announcing its online global journalism project. Voices of the World will provide a voice and a forum to young, aspiring journalists to exchange opinions, face prejudices and discover mutual consensus through the medium of written word. This is a unique initiative that will be shared by thousands of young people from all over the world.Read full release »
Voices of the World is an online weekly newspaper and magazine that will also allow young people from all over the world, whether volunteers or local residents, to engage in dialogue and learn about one another through journalistic exploration of (always pressing, sometimes controversial) topics that greatly affect our world today and their world tomorrow.
Projects Abroad volunteers help deal with effects of Roma deportations from France
September 2010
Young Projects Abroad volunteers in Romania are helping with the human tragedy created by President Sarkozy's Roma deportations campaign. They agree with Commissioner Reding that French deportations of Roma are a reminder of the Nazis.Read full release »
Dr. Peter Slowe, Director of Projects Abroad says "Our volunteers work at Sacele Hospital and Prejmer Day Care Centre. Every day, the tragedy, created artificially by the French President, unfolds before our eyes. Kids are abandoned because the families cannot support them. In France, a wealthy European country, the welfare system could look after them; here they cannot be cared for. And that is on top of the distress of being deported just because they belong to one ethnic community."
Alternatives to University for 170,000 students who might miss out
August 2010
Last year, Projects Abroad sent over 5,000 volunteers overseas to work on a voluntary project as part of a gap year. In the UK 41% of these were pre-university students, 18% were undergraduates and 78% of the total volunteers were between the ages of 16 and 24.Read full release »
The most popular placements are care projects with over 21% of Projects Abroad volunteers participating in these projects. Voluntary care work is one of the most worthwhile activities you can get involved in, whether it is in a developed or a developing country.
"I felt the work we did contributed to the community, which made my experience more worthwhile and meaningful." Luci Pollock (in Ghana)
Projects Abroad Edinburgh Information evening 16th August
July 2010
Projects Abroad is the leading global organiser of overseas volunteer work placements. Our wide range of projects, including Teaching, Care, Conservation & Environment, Medicine & Healthcare, Sports, Community projects, Business, Law & Human Rights and Journalism, are designed specifically for the needs of the communities in which we work, whilst giving our volunteers (aged 16 - 75) the very best experience of volunteering abroad.
Last year Projects Abroad had over 1500 UK based volunteers travel to 26 different countries on 5 continents to participate in over 500 projects. Over 40% of volunteers are undergraduates and more than 6% of the volunteers from Projects Abroad are from Scotland. One of these volunteers is Louise Ratcliffe who did a Medicine and Healthcare project in Ghana for 1 month during the summer holiday of her fourth year of University.
'As I'm studying medicine travelling to Ghana was the perfect way to gain more work experience as it was very different to anything I'd experienced in the UK"
Louise Ratcliffe (Ghana)
For more information about volunteering with Projects Abroad have a look at our website www.projects-abroad.co.uk and sign up for the Edinburgh information evening on 16th August 2010 6.30-8.30, Wallace Dunlop Hall, Stewart's Melville College, Queensferry Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3EZ
Wright Way for Volunteer Health and Safety Training
July 2010
For Madeleine Wright teaching schoolchildren health and safety skills in Ghana last year has changed her life. The 22-year-old university student, who is studying medical anthropology at the London School of Economics, taught at the Voice Preparatory School in Koforidua and quickly realised that health and safety was not a top priority.Read full release »
They had some basic health and safety laws but they didn't seem to take them very seriously, and the children had no training whatsoever," Madeleine said.
Human Rights Volunteers Meet World Cup Band in South Africa
June 2010
Projects Abroad Human Rights volunteers Talbot Beck and Justin Miller met the lead singer last week from the South African band, The Brothers Streep who played the FIFA stage during the World Cup.Read full release »
Most recently seen on the Graham Norton Show singing a song about American actress Anna Paquin, South African acoustic comedy band The Brothers Streep provided entertainment on the FIFA stage between matches at the World Cup.
Volunteer in South Africa during the World Cup
May 2010
Projects Abroad is the leading global organiser of overseas volunteer work placements. Our wide range of projects, including Teaching, Care, Conservation and Environment, Medicine and Healthcare, Community and Sports projects and specifically designed for the needs of the communities in which we work, whilst giving our volunteers the very best experience of volunteering abroad.Read full release »
With the 2010 football World Cup getting ever closer, football has never been bigger in South Africa. The football frenzy is growing and the eyes of the world will soon be fixed intently on South Africa.
Projects Abroad Pro - qualified volunteers in action
November 2009
Volunteering organisation Projects Abroad have officially launched an innovative initiative for skilled or qualified volunteers. Projects Abroad Pro offers recent graduates, professionals on a career break and retired seniors the chance to make a difference, using their knowledge and training to help some of the poorest communities in the world.Read full release »
With projects based in 17 countries throughout the developing world, encompassing areas such as business, culture and media, education, engineering, the environment, human rights, medicine and social work; anyone with a skill to offer will find themselves in demand.
March 2009, British Small Business Directors and Entrepreneurs Flee Britian on 'Enterprise Gap Years'
March 2009
Recession-worn British small business directors and entrepreneurs are increasingly abandoning Britain to join 'Enterprise gap year' schemes in developing countries.Read full release »
More than half of the 60% increase in older volunteers leaving on gap-years in developing countries are British small business directors and entrepreneurs, according to Projects Abroad, the world's leading commercial volunteer service organisation. Over 500,000 small businesses having ceased trading since the credit crunch began with over 50 businesses per day collapsing, leading to the increased interest in gap year programmes.
March 2009, Projects Abroad is offering a solution to the shortage of city jobs.
March 2009
Projects Abroad, the leading global organizer of volunteer placements, is offering a solution to the shortage of city law jobs, as highlighted yesterday in The Evening StandardRead full release »
A number of city law firms are paying graduates thousands of pounds not to start work for a year after being hit hard by the recession. Many are being told to use the money and time off to do something "meaningful and constructive".
Projects Abroad and Prime Pump aim to improve water infrastructure in Jamaica
November 2008
A one off project based in Mandeville, Jamaica, is currently recruiting volunteers to improve water infrastructure at a local school and orphanage.Read full release »
Wendy Tisdell, a volunteer with Projects Abroad in May 2008, is returning to Jamaica with her company in 2009 to help the New Hope Orphanage and McIntosh Primary School. They will receive on the ground expertise from her company, Prime Pump, and manpower from Projects Abroad, a global volunteering organisation, to improve their water infrastructure. The project aims to build a water storage system with an electric pump to carry the water to an ablution block.
May 2008, 20,000th Gap year volunteer joins Projects Abroad
May 2008
Seventeen year old Manon Oliver from Esher is the 20,000th volunteer to join Projects Abroad. Manon and her brother, both from ACS Cobham International School have joined a two week medical project in India this summer. Last week she was called by Dr Peter Slowe, Director of Projects Abroad to tell her of the significance of her application.Read full release »
Dr Slowe met up with Manon at the ACS Cobham International School with Recruitment Director, Ian Birbeck, to present her with a certificate and camera. Ian was one of Projects Abroad's first twenty volunteers joining a teaching programme in Moldova back in 1992.
Physiotherapy students seek alternative options as job opportunities prove slim
March 2008
A pioneering physiotherapy project in Nepal offering practical work experience is highlighting the importance of volunteers.Read full release »
The Self Help Group for Cerebral Palsy in Nepal is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation which is fully committed to helping children and adults with Cerebral Palsy and to providing emotional and practical support to their parents.
Law firms in China commend Projects Abroad interns, March 2008
March 2008
Projects Abroad now offers the chance to do an internship with a Law firm in a truly unique environment. There are a wide variety of legal areas in which interns work, including corporate, financial and criminal law. All placements are based in Shanghai.Read full release »
James Fones of Grandall Legal Group - based in Shanghai - wrote to Projects Abroad recently to praise the work done by our interns. He said: "Working with interns from Projects Abroad has been educational for both of us. Each intern in his / her own capacity brought with them superb skills and resources. Even the high school interns were top notch and contributed to our firm.
Meet Gerrit and the wonderful wilderness of Botswana, February 2008
February 2008
There is now an incredible opportunity for volunteers to live and work on a real-life African wildlife reserve. Covering some 15,000 hectares of land, the Legodimo reserve sits right on the border of South Africa and Botswana, straddling the majestic Limpopo River. On any average day on this unique project volunteers are likely to see Lions, Leopards, Elephants and Zebras, and volunteers have recently completed constructing a large watering hole, which has brought the action even closer to the camp!Read full release »
Archaeology volunteers required to help excavate sites in Romania, January 2008
January 2008
An innovative archaeology programme run by Projects Abroad in Romania is proving a big success with volunteers. Based around the historic town of Brasov in Transylvania, considered to be an area of huge archaeological importance, volunteers are assisting local archaeologists in digging, cleaning and recording information. Artefacts dating to 4000 BC have been found as well as Greek, Roman and Dacian remains.Read full release »
Celebrating 15 years Teaching & Projects Abroad becomes Projects Abroad!
August 2007
This month, the UK's leading Gap Year company 'Teaching & Projects Abroad' changes its name and becomes known simply as 'Projects Abroad'. The change for the West Sussex-based organisation comes after 15 years of arranging worthwhile voluntary placements – designed to be of benefit to both the volunteers and local communities, for over 15,000 people from the UK, US and elsewhere in Europe.Read full release »
The ultimate gap year that straddles the best of both worlds
July 2007
Choosing between spending a year out working or seeing the world is a difficult decision which young people no longer need to face. Thanks to a brand new package from The Year in Industry, the ultimate gap year is now up for grabs – giving young people the opportunity to both work and travel as part of a structured placement for the very first time.Read full release »
Interns sought for human rights voluntary work in Ghana
March 2007
UK-based Projects Abroad has been exclusively selected by the CHRI to provide law students as interns for this exciting project based in Ghana.Read full release »
Law student Danica Mullarkey, currently studying for a Masters at the London School of Economics, took up an internship at the CHRI in Accra during 2005.
She said, "Placed at The British Council – The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, I was truly made to feel that being a law student from England was of some real value, and not just merely as a volunteer who had come to make the tea. I was able to get straight into making a difference, and got involved in looking into Human Rights abuses by the Ghana police service, interviewing witnesses and documenting their testimonies, and researching material for the state of prison conditions in Ghana.
UK Gap Year students offered football project in Ghana
January 2007
An innovative football training project in Ghana offering coaching experience and professional league placements has been launched by Worthing-based Gap Year specialists Projects Abroad.Read full release »
Based in the capital Accra, this new project offers the opportunity to attend a football academy led by qualified coaches and participate in placements at local youth football clubs.
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Digitising investment suitability
For private banks and wealth managers, investment suitability is a hot regulatory topic and should be at the heart of front-office digitisation efforts. Supervisors expect them to strive for good customer outcomes and demonstrate decision-making processes centred on understanding of customer needs.
Watch Deloitte's global financial services leaders share their views on industry trends
In this series of "DChat" discussions, Deloitte's Global Financial Services Digital Transformation Leader, Michael Tang, discusses the dynamic transformation taking place in the financial services industry and what many organizations and consumers will need to do to keep up.
Tackling too-big-to-fail
The resolvability challenge for banks
Making banks resolvable is a key part of the global response to tackle institutions deemed 'too-big-to-fail'. As banks and resolution authorities turn in earnest to tackling impediments to resolvability, however, the complexity and magnitude of the challenge are becoming apparent.
Over the horizon: Blockchain and the future of financial infrastructure
Research from Deloitte & the World Economic Forum
The result of a project that Deloitte and The World Economic Forum worked on, this report looks at blockchain and considers the potential for distributed ledger technology to replace existing financial infrastructure,providing greater speed, accuracy and efficiency in many basic financial processes.
Deloitte Insights
Winning in middle-market banking
Although many middle-market customers seem satisfied with their current banking relationships, that's no guarantee of success in the future. Here are three strategies that can help banks sharpen their competitive positioning and compete against new players.
Deloitte Insights
Enforcement actions in the banking industry
Regulators issue hundreds of enforcement actions to banks each year. Recent research sheds light on current trends in the number, type, and severity of these actions, with implications for ways that banks may be able to better anticipate and respond to them.


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Most towns in Costa Rica have a wide range of places to stay, and even the smallest settlements usually have basic lodgings. Prices are higher than you'd pay in other Central American countries, but they're by no means exorbitant, and certainly not when compared with the US or Western Europe. Budget accommodation runs the gamut from the extremely basic, where $25 will get you little more than a room and a bed, to reasonably well-equipped accommodation with a clean, comfortable en-suite room, a fan and possibly even a TV for around $40 a night. In the middle and upper price range, facilities and services are generally of a very good standard throughout the country. When considering the cost, remember that not all hotels list the hotel tax in the published price.
Types of accommodation
The larger places to stay in Costa Rica are usually called hotels. Posadas, hostals, hospedajes and pensiones are smaller, though posadas can sometimes be quite swanky, especially in rural areas. Casas tend to be private guesthouses or B&Bs, while albergues are the equivalent of lodges. Cabinas are common in Costa Rica, particularly in coastal areas: they're usually either a string of motel-style rooms in an annexe away from the main building or, more often, separate self-contained units. Usually – although not always – they tend toward the basic, and are most often frequented by budget travellers. More upmarket versions may be called "villas" or "chalets". Anything called a motel – as in most of Latin America – is unlikely to be used for sleeping.
Few hotels except those at the upper end of the price range have double beds, and it's more common to find two or three single beds. Single travellers will generally be charged the single rate even if they're occupying a double room, though this is sometimes not the case in popular beach towns and at peak seasons.
Incidentally, wherever you're staying, don't expect to get much reading done in the evenings – light bulbs are very wan, even in good hotels. Also bear in mind that in Costa Rican hotels, the term "hot water" can be misleading. Showers are often equipped with squat plastic nozzles (water heaters), inside which is an electric element that heats the water to a warm, rather than hot, temperature. Some of the nozzles have a button that actually turns on the element. Under no circumstances should you touch this button or get anywhere near the nozzle when wet – these contraptions may not be quite as bad as their tongue-in-cheek name of "suicide showers" suggests, but there's still a distinct possibility you could get a nasty shock. The trick to getting fairly hot water is not to turn on the pressure too high. Keep a little coming through to heat the water more efficiently.
Costa Rica's hotels tend to be chock-full in high season (Nov-April), especially at Christmas, New Year and Easter, so reserve well ahead, particularly for youth hostels and good-value hotels in popular spots. Many hotels, even budget ones, are online, so the easiest and surest way to reserve in advance is with a credit card by email. Once on the ground in Costa Rica, phone or email again to reconfirm your reservation. Some establishments will ask you to reserve and pay in advance – the more popular hotels and lodges require you to do this as far as thirty days ahead, often by money transfer.
If you prefer to be a little more spontaneous, travelling in the low season, from roughly after Easter to mid-November, can be easier, when you can safely wait until you arrive in the country to make reservations. During these months, it's even possible to show up at hotels on spec – there will probably be space, and possibly even a low-season discount of as much as thirty to fifty percent.
Pensiones and hotels
When travelling, most Costa Ricans and nationals of other Central American countries stick to the lower end of the market and patronize traditional pensiones (a fast-dying breed in Costa Rica, especially in San José) or established Costa Rican-owned hotels. If you do likewise, you may well get a better price than at the tourist or foreign-owned hotels, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule. Though standards are generally high, you should expect to get what you pay for – usually clean but dim, spartan rooms with cold-water showers. If you think you might have a choice or want to shop around, it's perfectly acceptable to ask to see the room first.
The majority of accommodation catering to foreigners is in the middle range, and as such is reasonably priced – although still more expensive than similar accommodation in other Central American countries. Hotels at the lower end of this price category will often offer very good value, giving you private bath with hot water, perhaps towels, and maybe even air conditioning (which, it has to be said, is not really necessary in most places; a ceiling fan generally does fine). At the upper end of this price range, a few extras, like TV, may be thrown in.
Resorts, lodges and B&Bs
There are many resorts scattered throughout Costa Rica, ranging from swanky hotels in popular places like Manuel Antonio to lush rainforest eco-lodges in areas of outstanding natural beauty – the sort of hideaways that have their own jacuzzis, swimming pools, spas, gourmet restaurants and private stretches of jungle. These rank among the finest – and most expensive – places to stay in the country (For more information, see Top 5 eco-lodges for a few of our favourites), though prices can fall dramatically out of season, when you might be able to get yourself a night or two of luxury for as little as $150.
A new breed of B&Bs (often owned by expats) has sprung up in recent years, similar to their North American or UK counterparts, offering rooms in homes or converted homes with a "family atmosphere", insightful local advice and a full breakfast.
Though camping is fairly widespread in Costa Rica, gone are the days when you could pitch your tent on just about any beach or field. With the influx of visitors, local residents (especially in small beachside communities) have grown tired of campers leaving rubbish on the beach – you'll have a far better relationship with them if you ask politely whether it's OK to camp first.
In beach towns, you'll usually find at least one well-equipped private campsite, with good facilities including lavatories, drinking water and cooking grills; staff may also offer to guard your clothes and tent while you're at the beach. You may also find hotels, usually at the lower end of the price scale, where you can pitch your tent on the grounds and use the showers and washrooms for a fee. Though not all national parks have campsites, the ones that do usually offer high standards and at least basic facilities, with lavatories, water and cooking grills – all for around $2 per person per day. In some national parks, you can bunk down at the ranger station if you call well in advance; for more details, For more information, see National parks and reserves.
There are three general rules of camping in Costa Rica: first, never leave your tent (or anything of value inside it) unattended, or it may not be there when you get back. Second, never leave your tent open except to get in and out, unless you fancy sharing your sleeping quarters with snakes, insects, coati or toads. Finally, take your refuse with you when you leave.
Youth hostels
Costa Rica has over two hundred hostels and backpackers', some offering dorm beds for as little as $10 a night; most have a range of double, triple and family rooms, and many offer additional services including internet access (often for free), laundry and luggage storage. Bed linen, towels and soap are generally included in the price. There are only four official youth hostels affiliated with Hostelling International – Jardines Arenal in La Fortuna, Vista Serena Hostel in Manuel Antonio and Hostel Casa Yoses and Mi Casa Hostel in San José – which cost around $11–14 per night. As with all accommodation in Costa Rica, bookings should ideally be made several months in advance if you're visiting in high season.
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The latest articles, galleries, quizzes and videos.


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Even Reba can't save "Malibu Country"
Tough to say which is more tedious, the dated jokes about those libertines in L.A. or the dated jokes about wide-eyed Southerners shocked by the doings of big city folk. Together they make an altogether plodding sitcom that would have seemed trite during the Reagan Administration.
Reba McEntire deserves much better than "Malibu Country," a slightly desperate-feeling ABC sitcom premiering Friday (locally at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 7). As a political wife who declines to stand by her (cheatin') man, Reba Gallagher (McEntire) determines to take the kids and her cranky mom, and strike out for the Coast to seek her dream of musical stardom.
Throw in Lily Tomlin as the nagging mother with a taste for medicinal edibles, too many uninspired jokes about drugs and sex, and you've got a forgettable half-hour.
Read more…


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Help me out here girls. What the hell is twlight? It's clogging up the gossip pages I love to read and I don't know what it is.
This is the only kind of Twlight I know.
And I was searching for a picture of Nicola T, page 3 girl on I'm a celebrity who has not become a very irritating and true to her sterotype, bitchy. Instead (cover your eyes Mandy) I found this picture of ginger Nicola from Girls Aloud with the Chanel Bag I WANT!
It clashes with her hair. Give it to me! Give it to me!


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Hey guys
I'm looking to buy an all round surfboard that I can ride with or without kite in medium surf. The option to ride with straps would be nice too. I'm 6'1" and 210 lbs, as I've only owned twin tips I don't really know what to go to for in size and style, any help will be appreciated!


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Small family owned berry farm located in Northern California's Green Valley in beautiful Sonoma County 9201 Ross Station Road, Sebastopol, California 707.694.2301
- Sebastopol Berry Farm
- Our family started the farm back in 1986 after purchasing part of the oldest blueberry farm in California - Green Valley which planted the first blueberries in California in 1940. We started with blueberries and over the years expanded to include other berries. For 30 years, we've been dedicated to growing flavorful berries everyone can enjoy. Sabina and Tarcicio Vigil, mom and dad, put all their efforts into making the farm the best berry farm in the North Bay. We believe in clean agricultural practices and became a California Certified Organic Farmer early on. We also sell conventionally grown berries. Each family member is active in contributing to our success - from deciding which berries to plant to selling directly to our customers at local farmers markets in Northern California. It's truly a family owned and run farm!
Friday, July 1, 2016
4th of July weekend
Posted by Sebastopol Berry Farm at 5:33 AM
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However, as Mind Hacks pointed out, both the Economist story and the underlying FSI article rely mainly on anecdotal evidence. The scientific verdict is not yet in.
Indeed, when I last discussed the phenomenon here, two years ago, a study by Michigan Judge Donald Shelton was raising doubts. Judge Shelton found scant evidence to support claims by prosecutors that jurors' unrealistic demands for hard scientific evidence were causing unjustified acquittals. As the debate continues, I thought it time for an update.
I find it ironic that a phenomenon being blamed for injecting a biased expectation of science into the courtroom has not in itself been subjected to much scientific scrutiny. After all, anecdotes are not science; they can be used to prove almost anything.
As it turns out, some legal scholars are putting the CSI Effect to empirical scrutiny, and -- guess what -- a measurable effect in the predicted direction is hard to prove. In fact, if Crime Scene Investigation and other enormously popular forensic TV shows are having any effect, it may be in the opposite direction -- toward making juries more conviction-prone.
Mind Hacks provided links two excellent scholarly analyses, both available online and well worth reading. The first, by Simon Cole, a Criminology, Law and Society professor at UC Irvine, and doctoral student Rachel Dioso-Villa, was published last April in the Stanford Law Review. The second, by media law professor Kimberlianne Podlas of the University of North Carolina, was published in October in the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review.
Podlas initially devised a creative plan: She would ask prosecutors to give her details of cases in which they believed an acquittal was due to the CSI Effect; then she would have defense attorneys review the case files for alternate explanations. But, she found, 19 of the 20 cases provided to her by prosecutors had actually resulted in convictions, thereby disproving the effect.
Lacking any "real" CSI cases to analyze, she devised a mock jury case in which she manipulated the strength of the scientific evidence. She found no evidence of a difference in outcome between heavy and light viewers of the TV show Crimes Scene Investigation. As she wrote:
"What is labeled a CSI Effect may more accurately be described as a rationalization embraced by members of law enforcement who find themselves on the losing side of a prosecution. By attributing a loss to CSI's wrongful influence, a prosecutor can obtain an explanation yet maintain a belief that an acquittal was misguided. Although this cognitive rationalization is understandable, it should not be mistaken for empirical proof that the CSI Effect operates anywhere other than in the minds of those proposing it."In their excellent critical overview, Cole and Dioso-Villa go further, suggesting a propaganda parallel between the CSI Effect and the "litigation explosion" myth promulgated in the 1970s through a well-funded insurance industry campaign against civil plaintiff's attorneys. As in that instance, popular belief persisted even after social scientists thoroughly debunked the claimed explosion in litigation:
"Tort reformers' narratives captured a much greater share of media attention than did those of scholars…. Indeed, in the wake of media claims about the litigation explosion, socio-legal scholars documented that media coverage of civil law overwhelmingly emphasized plaintiff victories and high punitive damage awards. Thus, the supposed existence of a litigation explosion became educated common sense among jurors and even judges."Remember the McDonald's coffee spill and the microwaved poodle, urban legends still infamous today? These tales, Cole and Dioso-Villa argue, are akin to the "horror story" anecdotes of the CSI Effect, such as the supposed case in which a jury acquitted a rapist despite incriminating DNA evidence, just because soil found in the victim's cervix was not tested:
"Echoing the litigation explosion, CSI effect discourse is widely disseminating through the American public the belief that television drama is disadvantaging criminal prosecutions. And yet, the available evidence does not support this claim. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that the opposite may just as easily be the case: forensic-themed police procedural dramas may actually advantage the prosecution in criminal cases."
As shown in the above table, Cole and Dioso-Villa's analysis of several hundred media reports since 2002 revealed not one, but six claimed effects of forensic television shows on popular culture, depending upon the constituency doing the talking. The most dominant of these, the "strong prosecutor's effect," maintains that watching crime dramas makes jurors more likely to acquit guilty defendants. But, the scholars argue, the available evidence suggests an opposite effect:
"Jurors who are consumers of the popular media might believe that prosecutors are typically disadvantaged in criminal trials; that high expectations for forensic evidence are 'unreasonable'; and that criminal convictions are becoming increasingly rare and difficult to achieve. Jurors who believe these things might be more sympathetic to prosecutors out of sympathy for the perceived underdog or in attempt to correct for the perceived excesses of antecedent juries. Claiming to be disadvantaged is a familiar trope in trial advocacy, especially in opening and closing arguments; prosecutors frequently point out that they bear the burden of proof, whereas defense attorneys often refer to their lack of resources or to the awesome power of the state."This is a similar conclusion to that of Podlas, who wrote:
"If there is a CSI Effect, narrative theory and common sense suggest that it will benefit law enforcement. CSI features the fantastical world of forensics and smart police work. …This story may cultivate the notion that forensic scientists and their methods are legitimate and reliable, thus bolstering the prosecution's case…. Indeed, scientific evidence is very seductive to jurors, and they tend to overvalue its probity and overestimate its infallibility."Although the CSI Effect pertains to criminal court while the Litigation Explosion myth targeted the civil realm, they share a similar distrust of jurors, that is, of the ability of common citizens to be fair and find the truth. This lack of faith, from my experience as a court observer over several decades, is misplaced.


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The construction phase of the expansion of the Commerce Public Library is on target and should wind up before Christmas.
"We think it will be done by Dec. 21," reports Beth McIntyre, director of the Piedmont Regional Library. "We plan on having a grand re-opening celebration in January or February."
Once the contractor turns the building over, McIntyre said it will take a week or longer to move everything back into the building from its temporary location at the former Video Warehouse building on North Elm Street.
"It took a week to move out," McIntyre said. "We think it will take a week or just a little more to move back in."
Then, she said, a team from the Georgia Public Library staff, along with city of Commerce workers and the regional library's IT director will install all of the computers and other technology into the new space.
The $2 million expansion project will add 5,000 square feet to the library, which is located on South Broad Street.
"It's very exciting," McIntyre concluded.
Library construction could be done by Dec. 21
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In 1979 a bird, nesting on the 33rd floor of Baltimore's U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty building, caused much excitement.
The bird was a peregrine falcon named "Scarlett." Professional and amateur bird enthusiasts alike were ecstatic about this and monitored Scarlett's every move.
What was so captivating about this bird? Scarlett was an endangered species that had been hatched and raised in captivity and released into the wild. Of all the possible nest sites available, she and her mate had chosen the roof of this building in downtown Baltimore, Maryland.
Once settled into her new home, Scarlett laid infertile eggs. She was, however, given foster chicks to raise, the first peregrine falcon in the eastern United States to do so since 1959.
If you want to know more,
Here is a link to the peregrine falcon page on the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Endangered Species page.
Life History
A medium-sized bird of prey, the adult peregrine falcon is slate-grey on the head and back, barred and spotted below and has distinctive black "sideburns." Like other falcons, the peregrine has long, pointed wings and a slender tail. Immature peregrines have brown backs with heavy dark streaks below. These birds acquire adult plumage in their second year, but most do not reproduce until age of three.
Historically, the peregrine falcon ranged throughout North America and much of the rest of the world. In the eastern United States they nested from the Great Lakes and eastern Maine, south to Georgia and Alabama. Numbers were never large because each pair requires a large feeding territory centered around a suitable nesting site.
Peregrines usually nest on high, remote cliff ledges. The smaller male arrives first and courts the female by performing acrobatic aerial displays consisting of dives, loops and rolls. After courtship, the nest site or "eyrie" is chosen by the female. It consists of a shallow depression, or "scrape," in the rocks and soil, sometimes surrounded with twigs and grass. Both members of a pair may return to the same cliff in subsequent years but do not stay together after nesting.
In the Northeast, nesting starts in late March and, within a week, females lay three to five eggs. Eggs are pale rose with brown blotches. Incubation lasts about 33-34 days. Females incubate the eggs while males hunt and bring food to their mates. If the first clutch of eggs is destroyed, a second clutch may be laid. Chicks stay in the eyrie six to seven weeks after hatching and are brought food by both parents.
The peregrine falcon, often referred to as the duck hawk, feeds primarily on birds. Shorebirds and other species such as blackbirds, robins, jays and flickers are commonly taken. Prey range in size from swallows to large ducks. In urban areas, starlings and pigeons are the mainstay of their diet. Peregrines fly above their prey and, when ready to strike, cup their wings and fall into a dive called a "stoop." Peregrines in this free-fall may reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Prey may be taken over land or water, and often are caught in mid-flight. The peregrine strikes larger birds with its strong feet, instantly killing or stunning them. Small birds may be plucked from the air.
Threats to Survival
Peregrine falcons have few natural threats and may live 15 years once they have learned to hunt. Predators such as raccoons and great-horned owls occasionally take eggs or chicks from the nests. People have posed the greatest threat to this master of the air. Shooting, taking of eggs and young, poisoning and habitat destruction all contributed to the decline of peregrine falcons from much of their historic range.
Before World War II, the peregrine population in the eastern United States was estimated at about 350-400 breeding pairs. Indiscriminate shooting of peregrines was a key problem in the early 1900s. Falconers prized these birds for their excellent hunting ability and often took chicks from nests to be trained in the ancient art of falconry. Another problem was the taking of eggs by egg collectors.
During the late 1940s the numbers of nesting peregrines in the East declined sharply and many eyries were deserted. Breeding attempts were unsuccessful and many nesting cliffs were occupied by only one individual. Egg collectors, falconers, predators and human disturbance could not account for this abrupt decline.
After World War II, the use of a new insecticide, known as DDT, increased . At the same time, populations of peregrines, eagles and other raptors continued to decrease. Small birds and mammals ingested prey contaminated with the pesticide. Raptors feeding on the contaminated birds and rodents were, in turn, poisoned by a progressive build-up of the pesticide in their bodies. DDT was especially harmful because it caused eggshell-thinning and, therefore, reduced reproductive success. Even though the adult birds survived, they could not produce offspring. By1964 nesting peregrine falcons were extinct in the eastern United States. Peregrines still nesting in the western United States were determined to be an endangered species in 1970, two years before DDT was finally banned from use. Later all North American peregrines were listed as endangered or threatened.
What Has Been Done?
Banning the use of DDT in the United States was a critical step, but re-establishment of nesting peregrines called for new techniques. In 1979, a Peregrine Recovery Plan was prepared. The objective of this plan was to restore a new, self-sustaining population of about 175-200 breeding pairs of peregrine falcons in the eastern United States through a captive propagation and release program. Peregrine falcons from various sources were used as breeding stock. Chicks were hatched and raised in captivity and then "hacked" into the wild. Hacking is a gradual release of the captive reared birds into the wild, without the interaction of adult falcons.
The Recovery Program has been very successful. The Chesapeake Bay has again become an important area for resident nesting peregrines and migrating peregrines from the tundra of North America. Some of the released birds have taken up residence in cities or on bridges. Here, the falcons can find an abundance of prey including pigeons, waterfowl and shorebirds. In 1997 the eastern population of peregrine falcons reached 174 pairs, from which the Chesapeake Bay region contributed 27 confirmed pairs, producing 45 chicks. Recovery efforts finally paid off. In 1998, the peregrine falcon was proposed for removal from the endangered species list!
The captive breeding and release program has been successful, but concerns remain. The peregrine falcon population will be monitored for the next 5 years. In order to maintain a heathy population of peregrines in the East, nesting and wintering habitat must be preserved. Peregrines still need to be protected from killing or capture. With help and support by the public, the peregrine falcon will continue to be an awe inspiring sight on the Chesapeake Bay and the East Coast.