#AutopilotMind

[anthonynysa]

Is Free Will an Illusion? A Day in the Life of Your Decisions.

A Choice: Morning Snooze

Alarm goes off, you are still half asleep, and you stretch your right hand out to reach the little button marked "Snooze." Did you do that based on your decision, or did your brain respond on autopilot by now, conditioned by excessive sleep deprivation? Neuroscientists will argue that the brain made that call something like milliseconds before consciousness kicks in. So, was it you who actually decided, or did your brain go into action because the situation called for it?

The next in line is the choice of breakfast. You stand in front of your fridge, staring at it, and caught up in thought about the meal between eggs and cereals. You choose cereals. On what basis? Probably because you saw a commercial for it last night. Or probably because your body is craving some sugar after long fasting. Or keys to choices, even if unaccepted, could already be chosen on your behalf by previous experiences and biological programming.

Commute: Driving or Your Instincts?

It is very likely that you don’t think of every little thing: pressing the gas, switching lanes, stopping at a red light. For the most part, your brain relatively runs your commute by remote, with defenses lowered. After taking the same route every day, your body seems to just know where to go. Is that really free will, or rather is it just you executing pre-programmed behaviors, like a sophisticated biological GPS?

Let’s take it further: suddenly, you decide to take a different route. Aha! That was free will. But—wait!—was it? What if your brain already calculated that the other route would probably be preferred based on past experiences of being stuck by traffic patterns or subconscious stress levels? Maybe just “randomly” picking that route was a less random choice than it originally appeared. 

Midday: The Illusion of Choices

As you come towards lunchtime, and you begin to browse a menu, so many options! You feel like you are in control-no doubt, you get to choose what to eat. Let's take this apart:

Your upbringing has influenced your preferences, your past meals, and what type of culture exposure you had as well as from whom you receive the meal.

Such cravings of your body are ruled by biological factors such as blood sugar levels and hormones.

Though there could be marketing influencing your decision-you may have seen a burger being advertised earlier and now you are leaning toward it, unknowingly.

Insofar as free will is a summing up of past experiences, biological needs, and external nudgings, how free truly are your choices?

Afternoon: Can You Will Yourself to Work Harder?

You sit at your desk, trying to concentrate. You tell yourself-I will be productive by my choice. But do you truly? Studies suggest our ability to focus is governed by neurotransmitters, brain structure, and even how little sleep we got last night. On some days, no matter how much we will ourselves to concentrate, our brains just can't comply.

Even decisions to move towards motivation are suspect: Did you choose to be motivated today, or were you happening to be on the right side of the dopamine and serotonin balance? If you had gotten less sleep or a different genetic predisposition, would you even be able to join work, have concentration, and work? 

The Night: Interaction and Subconscious Scripts

You are with friends after work. Every interaction, every joke told, every opinion given- these are conscious choices, aren't they? Or do they come from experience, social conditioning, and subtle cues of body language developed over decades by other people?

Oh, you laughed at a friend's joke. Was that a conscious choice? Or was your brain lining up all possible social cues and producing the right answer? Deeper still-were you free to decide what kind of sense of humor you liked, or was it influenced by the environment you grew up in?

Night: Do You Decide to Overthink?

As you're lying in bed, you're having multiple thoughts racing through your mind. You'll play scenes from the day, analyze conversations, plan for tomorrow-even think about whether you made "the right" choices throughout the day.

But if each decision were merely an automatic response to the past chemistry of your brain, subconscious biases, and environmental triggers, was there ever a "right" decision? Or were you just along for the ride? 

So, Is Free Will an Illusion?

Come on, who hasn't debated about that before? For centuries, this has been a subject of deliberation among philosophers. Neuroscientists are now saying that many decisions we make may occur before we become fully conscious of their existence. Determinists hold that everything we do is the set of dominoes set in motion by a preceding cause, so free will doesn't really exist at all. But far from being the correct opinion, there are some philosophers who believe that as long as one feels they have free will, their choices being tainted by biological and past effects is no sin.

So, what to take from this? Perhaps free will is an illusion. Perhaps we are only the sum of experiences, subconscious programming, and biological forces. But so what? If life were to illusion us into feeling we do have choices, maybe that's the punchline.

Come on, when your alarm rings tomorrow morning, is it or is it not a possibility you won't hit snooze? 

[wildflower8281]

Your Brain is So Savvy!

Our Brains Find Evidence for That Which We Believe to be True

Your brain is so savvy that it will seek & find evidence in your reality for whatever you believe to be true. Whatever you truly - subconsciously, deeply - believe to be true! This is literally how “our thoughts create our reality” happens. It’s not woo or new age, it’s actually brain science. Read, research, it’s legit!

Our subconscious mind LOVES what it already knows, what it has already experienced and especially what it’s really familiar with. Just like us! It gets it’s programs down pat and is super efficient at the words, ideas and concepts we buy into. During our days moving through the world, it scans the 4 billion bits of input coming at us. It only has the capacity to process a small fraction of that and so it intakes the 2 million bits that are what it’s familiar with, namely the stories, beliefs and programs it runs in your brain each day! It’s like a child who’s been studying and then runs through the world like, “Hey! Here’s that word I’ve learned! Look! There’s that story I memorized!” 

This is why in order to live fully alive & awake, it is vital to begin paying attention to the stories, programs and beliefs that are on rerun in our brains. Most especially ones that cause us to feel down, low vibrational emotions, fearful, etc. If those stories remain in your brain, your brain will continue to seek & find evidence for them, quite literally re-looping you through similar experiences. 

Stories or beliefs might be: I’m not worth that much, My family always leaves me out, No one would ever want to date me, Finding a better job is a long, arduous, scary process, etc. 

The power to change those stories lies within each of us and it’s just a matter of paying attention, and putting attention; creating new beliefs and setting new programs in our brains, for which it will then find new evidence for. 

Once we learn how the subconscious mind works, we have the power to adjust it’s programs if we want to & take our Creative Energy into our own hands, consciously! 

Change Your Stories and Change Your Reality

When I left my most recent job, I made it a point to truly, deeply believe that leaving a job, stepping into the Unknown and opening up to the Universe was an exciting, expansive and peaceful move. I made a conscious decision to believe this and to disregard what society usually tells us about making such a move. 

And my experience since that move has been just that & more than I could imagine! 

Expansive, Happy, Enlightening, Exciting and Fun! 

Sure, there have been a few moments of fear, sadness, disappointment, but they took up about 15% of my time and have taught me enlightening lessons. So, they also are expansive in their own way & I’m honing my skill of taking things as they come and trusting that everything is working out best case scenario (@activationvibration), always.

My brain became familiar with the program of: This is fun, exciting, there are always New Opportunities each day, doing new things is an adventure, I am a magnet for prosperous opportunities, Abundance is all around me. 

Thus, my daily experience of life a reflection of this program that I consciously created. 

All Magic & Miracles Await You in the Unknown

Our brains love, love to shift things into Autopilot (or into a subconscious habit) because it is so energy efficient. Some of these things make sense (like brushing your teeth) but our whole life should not be on autopilot. We - our identities, our daily lives, our perceptions - are meant to be new, to expand, to grow during our lifetime on this planet! 

However, the subconscious mind does literally everything it can to keep us - all parts of our lives - on autopilot because “The Unknown is scary and dangerous!” It will toss up all kinds of excuses for why we shouldn’t change, should stay in our job, shouldn’t begin cooking real food, shouldn’t be open to new opportunities, shouldn’t add that to my website or resume, etc.

It’s kind of small minded in the sense that it plays small and scared! It also prefers to stick with the past & what it has already mastered and already knows. How boring, right?

In actuality, all Miracles, Newness and Amazing Opportunities exist in The Magical Unknown. 

It’s just about changing our stories, changing what we believe about The Unknown. 

I believe that Miracles and Happy Surprises exist in The Unknown and that it’s always a beautiful adventure to step into it. 

And this is how my life plays out.

This is a belief I put there and now I experience.

We are all Beings of Light. 

Our bodies and identities here on Earth are actually just temporary vessels that house us in our higher form, our Higher Selves... 

That part of us that trusts in the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

That whisper in us that knows there is more to life than I know yet...

So, change your stories about things, examine your beliefs, and watch your life upgrade in miracles!

(Photos: Unsplash)