Free will, Life and a gooey machine that does what it wants.

I am currently reading a few texts about how the brain works, free will and how we can train our selves to become a happy being. These texts has surely got my brain to run on full speed thinking about what I am reading and connecting the dots in all kinds of ways possible.

In an interview with Dalai Lama I read that he believes, due to own experience, that one could train the mind into becoming happier by doing some exercises for this. One that he mentions and that I still remember is that every morning when you wake up you should think that today I am going to use this day in the best possible way. And when it is time to go to bed you go over your day and see if you did what you planned and learn from your errors and in this way, one small step at the time, you will slowly train yourself in doing things you believe in and living your days as you want and thereby becomming more happy.

A different text explains that scientists and doctors have noticed that smoking does effect the brain physically which means that it is not a matter of free will when you want to stop smoking, due to these changes. I also read that stress can lead to brain damages (note: and tinnitus as well according to recent discoveries), which means that the issues that this brings are not only a mental illness, but actually a physical illness or modification if you will.

For a long time philosophers has seen the mind and the body as two different parts of the human being and has not really been able to connect the two. Others has unified the two down to only being chemistry and physics and there by completely removed the free will from the equation.

One of the currently most interesting lines in brain science at the moment is said to be the one using neural network as an analogy. This is a system that isn't preprogrammed, but is instead developing itself and making connections itself and thereby also teaching itself its task. The scientists has found that this system at many times reminds about how human learning acts.

After reading the four texts I have come to the conclusion that if we can imagine something, it can become a reality. We must only gather the correct information and be persistant in teaching ourselves to think the right thoughts and do the right things. The things we do in life is of free will, limited by our history and experiences that we have made. But as long as we follow a good process actively we can change ourselves into what we need to be to take the next step.

A good teacher is said to not only stand in the front and talk and talk without letting the students take part. Activity and taking part is key factors when one should learn something new.
Before learning something new we have to understand what it is we are going to learn and how it will apply in our lives or how we can use the information we are about to get.

When we have gotten the information we have to check that we understood what the information was about and if there is something missing. We have to come to some kind of conclusion.
Next step is to have the conclusion transformed into more general terms so it can be applied to other situations.
The last step is to evaluate the knowledge. Was it hard or easy to understand? What other difficulties might you run into in other similar situations?

So instead of just keep on living one has to take an active role in life and just not only "go with the flow". However, the brain can only handle up to seven chunks of information at the same time and the subconsciousnes can handle more than this, up to 20 I think the text said. This means, and has been proven over and over again by people such as Einstein and other geniouses, that thinking of a problem or how to solve it does not always give a solution. But if you spend enough time preparing for a solution for some time, then the mind will eventually put bits and pieces together when you decide to go fishing or take a walk with your dog in a park, just thinking about something else. The brain does never stop working and will, if it has collected the correct pieces of information, work out a solution of the task you have prepared for it.

(This is just some loose thoughts and I have more that I would want to add to this, but the thoughts are going too fast I just can't catch it all at the moment. Blogpost might be updated more within the week.)

Visit at the Historic Museum

Yesterday, I was visiting the Historic Museum in Stockholm to watch the Viking exibition and also to have a closer look into when the experts was collecting and rebuilding a skull digged up in the 1873ish by a careful archeologist in Birka/Björkö. The found was not only a skull, but a small girl in the age of 5-6. The archeologist decided back then not to dig up bone by bone, but instead lift the full coffin up together with the soil. The piece itself weighs around 150kg.

Work in progress

A few pieces from the facial area

Other skulls where used as reference

The Birka-girl has been very well preserved, much better than any of the other skeletons buried around her. One of the experts meant that just this particular spot she was buried in was the reason for that. In the other graves with similar burial methods, the skeleton was more or less completely disolved.

The girl had gotten a rarely performed chest burial and was not cremated, which otherwise was the most common way to bury people in her era. This could mean that she was from a family up high in the hierarchy, getting a very valuable burial like this one, or that she came from a different religion or geographical area where this was more of a tradition. She might as well have been buried during the later time of the viking age when christianity was known and influenced other religions.

She was buried with her clothes, jewelry and basic tools - knife and a needleholder. This points towards that she was not longer concidered as a human still in the childstate, but that she has started to learn some kind of craft, sewing. Learning a craft was back then one of the first steps into the adult world.

A needleholder. The one in the grave is from bone.

The brooch photographed in the grave.

The jewelry she was wearing was a necklace with pearls in glass, silver and goldcoated. She also had a round brooch in bronze that was goaldcoated. This could mean that she still was wearing her child clothes, that usually was buttoned together with only a brooch, or that she came from a different part of the world where this was a fashion. The experts explained that in southern Denmark and north part of Germany many burial founds has been made where the person has been wearing only a brooch instead of the common 2 oval brooches that are more commonly related to during the viking era.

The more common oval brooches.

Before the excavation of the skull pieces from the grave she was known to have worn a necklace of 20 pearls, but since wednesday the archeologists has found another 30 pearls in her grave around the ribs and under some of the skull pieces. The necklace was probably one with many strands and not all worn on a single strand.

The work with building her skull together will end up in a full scale model with face and clothes and will be finished in October/November 2011.

And the move was done

I have finally cleaned out the old appartment which took some effort before it was done. I got some help from a few friends, and I am not sure how I would hav managed it without their help. Daniel helped me for a day and Bob then came all the way from Stockholm with his car and drove me and the boxes that fitted in the car back to Stockholm.

Getting the stuff out of the car and in to Lindas appartment and cellar was easy. We are still unpacking a few things every now and then. Decided on taking it easy and just live of her things until we discovered that any one of us was missing something and if I got it, then we would go down and bring it up.
I should probably go and do some more folding and unpacking of my clothes that still are in a black plastic bag.

The days in Stockholm so far has been nice. We started off, the very same evening as I arrived, to go downtown watching a few concerts with Ane Brun, Alexander Ryback and a few other norwegian musicians. Later that evening we also watched Christian Kjellvander for a while and then the show of Kroumata. The next evening we went and watched Cullbergbaletten performing in Vitabergsparken and the evening after that a few people I know from Musikhögskolan in Malmö played at Brunkebergs torg in Vindla String Quartett together with Tingsek. It was a kind of strange feeling to see people from a life you have put behind yourself due to alot of negative stress that came from that life.

Yesterday we watched Jonas Gardell. He is just such a phenomenal storyteller that mixes real serious stuff with lots of comic. It was a really moving evening that made you think abit more of life and how to live.

Tonight I will meet up with a friend that also just recently moved to town that I haven't seen for a year or so and on wednesday I will meet Johanna which I haven't seen in 2 years or so.
There is for sure some pro's with living in a large city like Stockholm. Finally I am closer to people I haven't had the chance to see as often as I would like to. I feel that this episode of my life will indeed bring some more positive changes, but Im not sure in what package they will come - so let's just wait and see.

Discovering the reality

Soo. This might at last be the beginning of a new life in many ways. It is time for me not only to discover the reality around me, but also time to share it with you.

In many situations when I experience something or think about something that I just recently heared, experienced or read I tend to spin on the subject for a bit but does not really have anyone or anywhere where I can share my recent thoughts. I am a member of multiple social webpages, such as Twitter - @Nadrendion, Facebook, Google+, but those does not seem to be too friendly when it comes to sharing longer posts etc.

So who am I that want to share my thoughts with you?
I am Johnny, a 28 year old man from Sweden with various interests. I have been studying music for just about the whole time of my life. I play multiple instruments, such as recorder, cello, irish flute, tinwistle and sing.
I did go to the music teachers program at the Malmö Academy of Music, but took a break after 2.5 years due to some rather unpleasant experiences.

I have a great interest in historical crafts and reenactement of the medieval and viking age, and later aswell. Another interest I have that has been latent for so many years is horses.
Just recently I discovered Natural Horsemanship thanks to a friend of mine, Caija. She helped me to discover the incredible man Pat Parelli and his wife Linda Parelli that has a very natural way of treating his horses and actual having a horse-man relationship rather than a pray-predator relationship. (Interesting enough is that I don't have my own horse, but I hope that some time in the future this will come aswell.)

In just about 1 week I will move to the largest town of Sweden, Stockholm and there I will be living with my girlfriend, Linda, and I will be studying on a 2 year education towards System developement and Java programming. I will during this time also take private lessons on the cello aswell as have a closer look into the NH-world together with Anne Dirksen, a, if Im correct, 4-star Parelli-instructor living outside of Stockholm.
The move will also bring me closer to some friends I haven't spent too much time with due to the distance and I will meet new reenactement friends and crafters and musicians - And this is what this blog will be about, aswell as other thoughts of subjects I pick up on along the way.

Thanks for letting me share this with you and Welcome to Discovering the reality.