I can definitely take a ‘decision’ that’s arrived from the subconscious, analyse it consciously, and accept, modify or reject it. I’m aware many people don’t do that so much. So I think the results of those scans might be just a small part of the picture of what’s going on with consciousness and will.
Comment on do you think freewill truly exists?
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
No. Last I knew, PET (?) scans appear to indicate that decisions are reached by your unconscious mind before they’re made by your conscious mind; the implication is that what you believe is you making a choice is actually you rationalizing a choice that’s been made through processes that you can’t directly see or affect. IF that’s correct, then people are quite deterministic, as long as you know all of the inputs.
But on a practical, day-to-day basis, calling it ‘free will’ is a convenient fiction or shorthand. While free will may not exist, we largely believe that it does, and our perception of that in turn shapes our perception of reality. So it ends up not really mattering, strictly speaking.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
You think you’re doing that. But are you? Or are things happening below the threshold of your consciousness, and your conscious brain thinks that it’s the one running the show? Consciousness would be like the toddler with the toy steering wheel that thinks it’s driving the car.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Am I indeed? But at least, if I can observe a difference between hands off the steering wheel and hands on, with the car swerving accordingly, then something seems to be going on. Perhaps the adult is moving the toddlers hands too; or perhaps the toddler truly has agency.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You think that we have no affect on our own unconscious mind?
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
If the unconscious mind is making the decisions prior to cognition about the thing, how could our will alone affect it? It seems more likely that things outside of our direct control are changing how we are acting, and then the conscious part of ourselves creates the reason that we acted in a specific way.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The unconscious mind is simply the sum of our experiences. Decisions that come from there are formed from previous consequences from past actions as well as what you’ve learned from others or simulated in imagined scenarios.
It is not a thing that is other than ourselves.