Molly - excellent. Really excellent. Thanks.
For years I've pondered what goes on as I think and speak. Paying
close attention to what I say when in discussions with others, I find
that I really don't know what I'm going to say; I just have an urge to
speak and know how to begin what I want to say. I only find out what I
think as I speak - amazing. (Now if only I could develop that veto
power you mention.) For most of my life I'd just taken it for granted
that I was some sort of logic and memory machine that processed
information and reached rational conclusions. Now I completely doubt
that model. I find to be more and more true that we just seem to be
actors on a stage, speaking lines that our prompter gives us.
Disappointing to the ego, but still interesting. Thanks for all the
info about this line of thinking, and thanks to all the others for
their contributions to the thread too. I really couldn't care less,
Molly, if you've posted it elsewhere. I'm just glad you posted it
here. Jim
On Jul 22, 7:29 am, Molly Brogan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Are we in control of ourselves, our lives, our families, our worlds?
> Or are we just aware and knowing what one can do if something
> unpredictable happens?
> There are many explanations for why we do what we do. For example,
> Thomas Metzinger's new Book, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind
> and the Myth of the Self, seriously questions whether there is even an
> "I", let alone a "we." And Douglas Hofstadter's book, I Am a Strange
> Loop, contends that the "self" is a recursively self-referencing
> memory loop.
>
> Hundreds of experiments by Benjamin Libet and others tend to
> conclusively confirm that our brain prepares to execute our decisions
> before we are even aware that anything is being decided. It alerts us
> to our decisions only in time (a split second) for us to veto them.
>
> Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet, as well as Benjamin
> Libet's book, Mind Time, and Walter J. Freeman's book, How Brains Make
> Up Their Minds.
>
> It is quite likely that we have no so-called "free will" other than
> veto power over our specific actions. Our free will may consist
> instead of 1) being mindful about any ill-serving subliminal
> intentions and tendencies that inform our actions so that we are
> accordingly prepared to veto any action that they correspondingly
> inform, and of 2) programming (or reprogramming) our subliminal
> intentions to be more productive of the experiencing that we most
> desire.
>
> Do we have the power to create our realities? Are we in control?
> What do YOU think?
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