Before you decide to do something, you're already acting

I'm a big non-believer in free will. OK, more simply put, I don't believe in free will -- even though, like almost everybody, I feel like I have it.

Today I listened to a guided meditation by Jeff Warren on my Calm iPhone app. It starts off this way. 

There's a famous neurobiology finding where a test subject is told to push a meaningless button whenever they feel like it. And meanwhile, scientists are watching the subject's brain activity on an EEG machine.

And here's the weird thing. A full six seconds before the person has the thought, I'm going to push the button now, the brain has already begun pushing the button. It's like the body was already doing it. The mind only jumps in afterwards.

So, I have no idea what to make of this finding. But it did give me a cool idea for a meditation. In this Daily Trip we're going to let go of all sense of being the doer. It's an opportunity to just relax into the weird spontaneous flow of life. 

I'm not aware of the study Warren is referring to. But the general phenomenon of the brain appearing to make a decision well before conscious awareness has said I'll do this, is well established. 

For example, check out "Neuroscientists can read brain activity to predict brain decisions 11 seconds before people act."

Free will, from a neuroscience perspective, can look like quite quaint. In a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers in Australia were able to predict basic choices participants made 11 seconds before they consciously declared their decisions.

In the study, 14 participants—each placed in an fMRI machine—were shown two patterns, one of red horizontal stripes and one of green vertical stripes. They were given a maximum of 20 seconds to choose between them. Once they’d made a decision, they pressed a button and had 10 seconds to visualize the pattern as hard as they could. Finally, they were asked “what did you imagine?” and “how vivid was it?” They answered these questions by pressing buttons.

Using the fMRI to monitor brain activity and machine learning to analyze the neuroimages, the researchers were able to predict which pattern participants would choose up to 11 seconds before they consciously made the decision. And they were able to predict how vividly the participants would be able to envisage it.

Lead author Joel Pearson, cognitive neuroscience professor at the University of South Wales in Australia, said that the study suggests traces of thoughts exist unconsciously before they become conscious. “We believe that when we are faced with the choice between two or more options of what to think about, non-conscious traces of the thoughts are there already, a bit like unconscious hallucinations,” he said in a statement.

I find this to be really positive, even inspiring. 

During the 35 years I believed in God and a guru who was God in Human Form, who managed a disciple's karma in a fashion best suited for spiritual development and God-realization, I enjoyed the thought that what was happening to me was God's will. Or, guru's will.

That took the pressure off of me when I did something wrong. Also, when I did something right. Either way, it was a relief to not feel like the responsibility for either good or bad actions fell upon me. I believed that a higher power was guiding what I did.

Now that I'm an atheist, modern neuroscience is showing a different reason for why I'm not responsible for the decisions that I make: the conscious "I" which thinks it is in control appears to be subservient to unconscious brain processes that lay the basis for my actions before I consciously decide to do them.

So "As God wills" is replaced by "As Brain wills." 

Sure, I realize that religious people much prefer feeling like they're being guided by God than by the unconscious aspect of their own brain. However, the end result is pretty much the same. What we do and think and feel springs from a deeper source than our conscious awareness.

Sam Harris often refers to this sort of thing in the guided meditations on his Waking Up app. Harris will point out that in sitting meditation, there's no need to do anything. 

Thoughts come on their own. Emotions arise on their own. Bodily sensations appear on their own. Sights and sounds are present on their own. He urges that we become aware of that open space in which all of these contents of consciousness arise and pass away.

Today I experimented now and then with feeling less like a doer of my actions and more of an observer of them. On the whole, it was a pleasant experience. Life goes more smoothly when I'm not anxiously trying to make everything happen the way I want.

For example, this afternoon I went to our athletic club to exercise before my Tai Chi class.

I didn't have much time to spare in the circuit training weight room. I wanted to use every machine, but saw that a young guy had settled into a leg machine, where he was doing multiple sets and spending a lot of time looking at his phone in between the sets. 

That started to irritate me. But I was able to relax and say to myself, "Let's just see what happens." Well, what happened was that the guy got up and walked out of the weight room. After I'd finished the machine I was on, I went over to the now-available leg machine.

The guy suddenly appeared again. I said, "Oh, so you're still using this." He said, "Yes, but you can go ahead." I told him, "Thanks. It won't take me long." Which it didn't, since I just do 20 repetitions with no break.

When I finished I thanked the guy. We'd had a pleasant encounter. And I really didn't have to do anything other than wait and see how the situation played out without me trying to force anything.

Comments

[s*]

Very nice this Brian..

I do actually the same..
Sometimes I forget it..;)

Itś a very fine way to ´be´..

I am the ´do´er´and I am not..

Itś fine..

[Spence Tepper]

We are only free to be thankful when we aren't reacting negatively. And thankfulness is a wonderful place of peace and happiness.

Observation can help us see a slightly larger perspective. Dispassionate observation can help us get there.

Giving everything to God is a method, continuous prayer is a method to release reactivity and become more authentically in the moment. He is far greater than our reactions and He is managing the many moments of creation perfectly. Or you can start by accepting that the moments of creation proceed in their cause and effect relationships in a perfect balance, hence no point in reacting.

Then, instead of seeing a guy on his cell phone wasting our time, we just see the moment our turn comes as it's own inevitable place in exactly the moment it was always going to be.

And if we practice this returning our reactivity to Mother Nature....

We may one day look beyond ourselves to see another human being on his cell phone struggling to find a moment of peace amidst a sea of turmoil.

Then reactivity, now replaced with calm centered acceptance, becomes a response of understanding, empathy, warmth and compassion. All the things "being a good human being" can be.

[s*]

Nice Spence!
Be the observer.. of ourselves and everything happening..
Then even´ being shy´ can maybe disapear..
;0) I struggle with it.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi S*

I just listened to Thich Nhat Hanh answer a question, "How do we stay in the moment when it is unbearable?"

His answer was that, returning to the present is returning home. He described just being in the present as being home. And not being in the present, being beset with concerns, a distance from home, the actual unbearable condition.

He said "Returning home to the present has many pleasant experiences in it."

[TENDZIN]

Sant mat doesn't teach that we're not responsible for the decisions we make. It teaches that everything that happens to us is a result of our karma (our actions), the experience of which can be eased by surrender to the Guru or God.

[s*]

Yes Spence,very nice to be ´home´ in ourselves..then automatically circumstances are also ´home´.

TENDZIN,
I dońt like the karma=guild thing for a long time now.
Things are happening ..and we can ´react´ or not..is also reaction..
Surrender is a very fine thing to do..
I do a video of a Sick..
I think itś nice actually.
:0)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed6N5X_rnWY

[Roger]

Any suggestions on how to distinguish between the subconscious and the unconscious?? These two terms seem to interchange from time to time.

[umami, peaceful warrior]

"Today I experimented now and then with feeling less like a doer of my actions and more of an observer of them. On the whole, it was a pleasant experience. Life goes more smoothly when I'm not anxiously trying to make everything happen the way I want."

Would churchy people call it "surrender?" I guess that's what bothers me about religious culture, so melodramatic!

[Dungeness]

@ Roger : [ Any suggestions on how to distinguish between the subconscious and the unconscious?? These two terms seem to interchange from time to time. ]

I believe they're loosely the same but both signify stored
data/memory unavailable to consciousness for intervals
of time. Some of it remains buried for a lifetime for sundry
reasons. Other info we may recall it easily and repetitively
on the other hand. I think personally we tend to opt for the
word "subconscious" when the emphasis is just on a data
store with retrievable items and "unconscious" when we
intend to stress the mechanics of the brain as the alleged
creator of thought.

[Roger]

Thanks Dungeness ...................

[S]

Superconscious >> conscious >> subconscious >> unconscious >> dead. Downward spiral.

[Po]

How do you know that those “unconscious” processes are not part of your will in action? Can you gradually make those unconscious processes conscious? Is the surface you the same as the underlying layers? Almost seems like the answer is hidden in your book on Plotinus. I also don’t think your asking enough questions and applying critical pressure to this now atheism you have adopted. Are you now surrendering your judgment to one thing instead of another so you don’t need to do the heavy lifting yourself?

[manjit]

https://neurosciencenews.com/libet-free-will-23756/

https://groups.io/g/RadhasoamiStudies/message/189333

PHAT!