Cultures, vultures, and the problem of free will...

Several things have come to the Beard's attention recently... unrelated things mainly, or rather things related only by the fact they are made up of human experience... as are indeed most things... apparently... Indeed, the inter-relatedness or otherwise of things has long been of interest to the Beard, as those who have had the misfortune of talking to the beard in the pub will attest... or not attest, depending on their attitude to attestation.. but I digress.... But then again, what is the world of human experience but a digression, the most major one most of us will ever experience... or not experience, as the case may be... but regardless, it seems that the topic of conversation in scientific circles is the old chestnut of free will... new genetic research or some such has cast the whole idea into doubt... it seems that we may not have free will after all... again... now, where the Beard, as you may not know, is, if not a believer in, at least a hoper for, free will, his take on the matter is this... in the final analysis, it really doesn't matter... But Why??!!? I hear you ask... or not ask, or some strange halfway house between the two... simply this... whether we have free will or not makes absolutely no difference to our lives... our experiences will be the same, our pasts will not change... all that will disappear is the illusion of choice... and, let us be honest,if free will does not exist, if we are indeed automatons, then we have in the apst been automatons with the illusion of choice... and that means that even if we now know that such choice was an illusion, then we can get that illusion back... indeed, it is probably hardwired into us... but then, carrying on with the whole theme, it must also be programmed into us to doubt our existence, doubt free will, have the illusion of choice and then lose this and regain it... or not regain it.. but the best that can be said is this... that if we are automata, or automatons, then nothing is our fault, and we can at least relax knowing that what we do is all we can do... if, of course, we are programmedto relax... And I think here that we have the reason that all of us desire free will... that we do actually like to be able to blame people for their actions... if we are not automata programmed to want to blame people for their actions.... but as I have said, it doesn't really matter, so I will continue to hope that we have free will, since that is what I was programmed to do... The Beard is a great believer in freedom of choice... not that I believe that all choices are valid, or that people should be allowed to choose to do what they wish... oh no, far from it.... but no, the Berad believes that we all make choices, and that we are all responsible for our own choices.... that's why he has trouble subscribing to the old Judaeo-Christian (a nd mainly Christian, to be honest) idea of the devil being the root of evil... evil, in the Beard's non-too-humble opinion, is simply the making of a choice that harms the majority, or goes against the agreed social code... and thus means that those who do evil are not the poor victim-tools of some supernatural being, but are selfish, odious scum... Take for example the nine men convicted today of running a sex ring in Rochdale... they knew what they were doing, and delighted in it... and now their lawyer is appealing against the sentence... not because he thinks they are innocent, but that he believes that the BNP were behind the conviction, possibly by perverting the jury... now, the BNP are not my favourite party, and this event shows to a certain extent why they should never be allowed to run a bath, let alone a country, but they are not to blame for any of this... it wasn't the BNP that coerced and forced girls, some as young as thirteen, into these acts... and neither was it the Pakistani community, or Islam... neither was it their parents... The race card has well and truly been played on this one... and the faith card... and the "uncaring parents card..." One of the accused even said that if the parents let the kids out on the streets dressed as they were, then the parents didn't value the girls... so why should he?? Peopel have claimed that this is "definitely" a Muslim thing... that Hindus would never do such a thing... but it's nothing to do with faith or race... partly it's a cultural thing, or rather a mistake caused by misunderstandings between cultures... a good muslim girl would never dress that way... or be out on the streets... but there are plenty of Muslim countries where they do and they are.... like the Birka, this is a culture thing... in western culture, showing legs is not considered a bad thing... in Pakistani culture it is... in Malay culture, it isn't... and a lot of them a re Muslim... and, like rude signs, the person brought up in a certain culture interprets the signs differently... when westerners see a young girl with slapped on make up, they think Jordan... when traditional Pakistani men see the same they think prostitute... but then, when peopel stare at us in the street, we see it as insulting or threatening, where I'm told in Pakistan it is jst seen as normal... but more than a culture clash, it is this... most traditional Pakistani men when seeing a girl dressed in skimpy clothes with too much make up would indeed think this girl to be a lower class of person... but they would then either ignore her so as not to associate with something shameful, or they would wish to help that girl get out of the shameful situation she is in... they would not see it as right to rape and abuse her.. and this is where it becomes a matter of individuals... much has been made of the fact that whereas most child abusers are white, they work alone, whereas this was a gang of men who knew each other... but then, there are internet rings of white men doing the same thing... and its not surprising that they knew each other... unfortunately, families are sometimes the worst environments, and people do have atendency to seek out acqaintances with similar interests... if these men had been in a white family, they would almost certainly have done the same thing, and to the same girls... it is mainly white girls who are allowed on the streets late at night, and who belong to a culture that sees alcohol as being necessary for a good time... and are therefore far more vulnerable... the truth of the matter is, there are evil people wherever you look, and this is their own choice... and where it would be nice to get rid of all the evil people in the world, it just won't happen... so we need to be vigilant... and more than anything we need to help people in vulnerable positions, by keeping an eye open for the signs, and butting in where necessary, no matter how rude it may seem... As the beard has admitted, he's not one fro the Judaeo_Christian_Muslim stuff, but the book of genesis puts in quite well, when YHWH asks Cain where Abel is... in essence, we are all part of the same human family, and we should all be our brother and sister's keeper... the maybe we'll all be happier... and please everyone, lets stop blaming bad things on race, culture and faith, and concentrate on the real problem... the selfish, evil men and women who choose to hide behind race, faith and culture, blaming these three blameless things for their own deliberately harmful choices... for without them, the rest of us could live a lot more happily... But my time for digressive behaviour is alost past... an early start beckons, and so does the beautiful Mrs Beard... so it just remains to say that until will is free, and you is me, and land is sea, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, later tonight I'm off bowling (but not for soup, I hasten to add...)with my Scout Troop.... should be fun... I think it is a primal urge within all of us to throw things at other things in the hope that one of the things breaks, or one of the things gets stuck in one of the other things, or... but you get the drift... now this was all very useful in the so-called cavemen days, when a skill at chucking literally could be the difference between life and death.... but nowadays?? Some very learned people have pointed out that this indicates that for us evolution is over, and that to alter our behaviour we must now make the effort to do it ourselves.... this unfortunately presupposes several things.... (i) that evolution exists... (ii) that evolution is entirely non-voluntary and cannot be influenced by personal effort, (iii) that doing it ourselves is not evolution per se, and (iv) that chucking is no longer a useful skill..... I demolish this argument with all the innate smugness of the non expert, and wait to be shot down... (i) is not proven yet.... (ii) denies that we can take conytrol over our own destinies, (iii) does not take into account that we could have evolved the ability to evolve delibeerately (albeit clumsily...) and as for (iv).... chucking is very definitely a useful skill today....from the bowler in a cricket match (and I dare anyone to tell me that sports and entertainment are not useful) to the Amazonian tribesman who still needs to spear his fish.... so why need we lose the skill....

Anyway, despite the importance of chucking, I am still notoriously bad at it... something I always believed of my songwriting skills... until now.... a drummer of my aquaintance, now turned lead guitarer and singist,happened to see a couple of my lyrical efforts... ok, I forced them on him.... and, guess what... he liked one... but not the other... but there we are... he took them both, showed his band, and hey presto, they thought the same as him.... and as a result, they put music to the one they like (Family Life) and chucked the other away.... so when Insuffuicient Funds (or whatever they end up as ) go on stage for the first time, my song will be in the playlist.... "Family Life, " by Kirk Wisebeard and Insufficient Funds.... so I can now call myself a songwriter for real..... so thats another ambition achieved,... now there's just the publishing of poetry, and my appearance in a Musical to achieve.... preferably Blood Brothers (in which i would like to play the narrator), Les Mis (where for preference I would be Eponine, but not having the figure for it, would settle for Javert or Thenadier) or Oliver, where i believe my Fagin would steal the show... although I'm told Bumble is more in my line.... failing any of this, a role in Chess or Rocky Horror would suffice.... but I digress.... also, my stage appearance as a country and western singer is in the pipeline.... possibly.... but there we are... anyway, until all drummers become seen as musicians, Wisebeard salutes you.....!!!!!