I'm back!

Well, that about wraps up this seasons X-mas concerts for me. So I should have some time to sit down and think actual thoughts (that is if I can get all these blasted jingle bells out of my belfry.)

I was pretty happy with my singing at these concerts (though I was not happy with my voice)-- I hope to put up an MP3 of one of the pieces as soon as I can. It's an interesting thing that we do as singers-- to train ourselves to get up and give a fearless performance even though it feels like rats have been gnawing at the vocal folds. Intellectually I know that most of that harmonic intereference we hear when in bad voice is inefficient and it does not make it to the audience, but it sure doesn't make it FEEL any easier.

Chapter 5-- make sure to read chapter 4 first!

While we're on the subject of time, let me inform you still-breathing lucky mortals something about the nature of the universe. Though the dead are free to move about time, we can't jump the tracks. In deadth, one discovers there is something quite ridgid about time.

When you die, the whole of your life is opened up to you, and you can see the whole thing as an inseperable fabric of cause and effect-- the events marching on with forboding destiny. When one examines the influence of biology and then the layers of experience compounding over time, the idea of free will is revealed to be something of a sham. For the failures among the unliving this is quite a relief, but the successful are usually somewhat disapointed. There is an experiment that I have been free to conduct thousands of times since my death, the results, thus far, have been conclussive:

Free will implies that in any given situation, a human being has a choice. For their to be a choice, the subject must be free to act without cooersion. This includes the cooersion of physical law. For example, an unsupported ball hovering over the earths surface has no choice but to fall. It is coerced by gravity. Humans are equally coerced by external physical events, but also by the physics of chemical reactions occuring inside their heads. Each choice a human is confronted with is run through the same process:

1. The brain receives the incomming sensory information about the dilemma at hand.
2. The brain begins to compare the event to the whole of its past experience.
3. A very predictable chemical reaction occurs based on the existing body of reference the brain has at hand.

"Do you want a cookie?' The brain goes into action. You happen to have a genetic predisposion towards eating sweets, however you ARE on a diet. But the offer of a cookie triggers a conditioned emotional response and "cookie=good" endorphins are released into your blood. A whole series of airtight cause and effect relationships trigger in your brain as you justify eating the cookie. The brain sends out a signal to the hand "take the cookie!" You gobble down like cookie clown.

So to test free will, two entities would have to be subjected to the exact same physical circumstances and be able react differently. But for the physical circumstances to be identical they would have to have identical biology-- to rule out biological predisposition. And they would have to have exactly identical external circumstances-- so to rule out any external coercion. And they would have to have exacly identical life experinces, so to rule out the physical determination of chemical reactions inside their brains. Infact, to avoid physical coersion, the event would have to play out exactly the same for both entities right up to the exact moment the correct brain cells fire making the "choice." The subjects would both be confronted with the choice, all of the brain reactions would be identical-- they would share the same genetic predisposition, and their brains would process the new event through the same past experiences-- the factors would add up in exactly the same way and their brains would fire exactly the same circuits and thus send out exactly the same signals "take the cookie" and for free will to exist, one of the subjects, despite the exact same external and internal physical circumstances and brain response, would have to somehow resist physical law and decline to take the cookie.

As a dead person, I am an ideal candidate to run this experiment. I can relive the same choice over and over, with exactly identical physical circumstances and biology and experience and neurology and wait for a different result. Over 1000 times I have relived the same event now, with identical "causes." each time waiting for a different "effect." As the living, we hope against hope that there can be a different effect, that there can be a "choice." Here is what the dead can all tell you: you always take the cookie, its always the same, the effect always flows out of the unquestionable logic of cause.



And although this matter of time and free will is bound to play a role in our mystery, it's time to return to our task. As I promised before, we've had enough of my moping about the land of the dead. It is time to rise form the grave in serious voodoo fashion and walk the land of the living in search of my murderer.

I find that core of doubt inside myself and I bear down on it with all of my soul. I feel the color of life again and the smell of the living world, shape has meaning again, and I feel myself briefly in my familiar physical shell, trapped in the dark, in my coffin, in useless body and terror overwhelms me.... I remember what my buddhist friend joe used to tell me and I let go of my attachment to body. I feel myself rise lightly sans corps to the surface and take my first breath of air in what seems like centuries. After realizing that I don't have lungs to breath with, I look around. I'm in a cemetery just two days after my funeral. I'm not alone.

NEW!!!! Add on Chapter 4!!!!

In lue of any onther Medium picking up the pen in the name of our dearly departed hero, I once again chanel our beloved shoe salesmen lost in Uzbekistan....

the table shakes, my eyes roll about in my head...

the lights dim, and candles spontaineously combust...

Ectoplasm oozes from my skin to form a perfectly stacked pile of moist towellets which I wll save for use the next time uncle Evan makes his decliciously sticky barbeque ribs-- this is a gift of my late Grandfather, who claimed to have been the true inventor of what he called "damp hankies," thanks Gramps....

Uuuuuuuuugghhhhhhhhh Nike shoes, nike shoes, nike shoe....



Harken, the dead man speaketh:

Its a well known scientific fact that the dead are not constrained by the laws of thermodynamics. Hence we are the freest of the freeence deance. With the time-glue of entropy come undone, the dead loiter through their lives like 28-year-old reunionees through the vacant halls of their alma mater-- poking through the old locker, and stolling past dead memories.

I myself have relived one particular event 476 times. When I was in Jr. Highschool, my best friend Mark was, well, lets just say he was going through an awkward period. I on the other hand was sipping my first shots of popularity. I wish I had been strong enough in life, to be a good friend to Mark but I wasn't. So 476 times now, without the shackles of entropy, I have relived this event backwards, and I have acted like the friend I should have been. When I relive this event in reverse, here's how it goes:

I feel terrified and ashamed. Mark stands in front of me in the crowded lunchroom-- someone has splattered food all over his shirt. He looks as ashamed and terrified as I feel. I laugh and look around at the "in crowd" apparently applauding me. Boldly, I suck the food off of his shirt, and pull it back onto the plate in my hands, and I set it safely on the table behind me. Mark looks happy again. He says to me these strange words that seem to be magical: "?uoy ot txen tis I naC" Suddenly I feel happy again, and I walk away from that table of judgemental jocks, laughing with my best friend.

I don't often revist my highschool years, where our roles were reversed. Mark would eventually become a great athlete and a college quarterback, with all the popularity that goes with that. I on the other hand would become insufferably geeky. Where I had failed, though, Mark would often talk to me and try to be nice, but we were never really friends after Jr. High.

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