Explain You

Look up or down. Pick a direction and do it.

Now, don't think of a puppy.

So how did you do? Which of the previous instructions elicited what you might consider a choice that you thoughtfully examined and made? Most likely, you'll suggest that you chose the head movement and had no decision but to think of a puppy.

How would you respond if I said that neither instance of direction proceeded with a willful choice on your part; that in fact the "you" that was either encouraged to move your head or cajoled into thinking about a puppy is nothing more than an illusion of the mind.

Before you click away in disgust or incredulity, let's first try to understand what "you" means to you and I promise we'll return to that crazy illusion-talk. A standard definition of "you" is the point-of-view of the thinker that inhabits your brain. No doubt you will arrive at some version of this description with a common thread of a "decision-maker" or "controller."

Assuming I have more than one reader let's come up with a generic name for this controller to hurt no one's feelings. Let's say Anna is your mind. She is the decider and the portion of the mind that is aware of itself, or self-conscious.[1] Anna considers decisions, She weighs positions, points-of-view, and determines outcomes. Then Anna decides. You get the picture, or Anna get's the picture!

Still with me? Good. Now let's make one last distinction: What is the difference between your brain and mind? This variance is significant, especially for the illusion stuff, later. The brain is the organ that we see stuck in big smelly jars at museums or well-funded high school biology labs. Its incredible physiology consists of, among other things, 100 billion neurons and about 100 trillion neural connections (more than all the stars in our galaxy or than all the galaxies in the observable universe).[2]

The mind, on the other hand, is the psychological locus of perception, cognition, memory, and judgment that is born from the brain. In other words, the brain is the physical mechanism and girds the mind which represents mentation. Without the brain, we don't think and most certainly don't see, breathe, or hear.

Conversely, the thinking mind doesn't cause the brain to be, exist, or function. That would be akin to the smoke of a steam train being the cause of its locomotion; rather it's a by-product of the actual physical mechanism of the coal burning that moves the train.[3]

So if Anna is the sense of controlling experience within the mind, and the mind is a construct of the brain, then providing your onboard with cause-and-effect (or determinism),[4] what we have left at the end of the chain is a by-product. So what does this have to do with making decisions and the illusion of "you?"

The issue with having the freedom to make choices requires there to be no precursor to judgment; the process should begin with you. So how does something not have a precursor, a cause, a lead-in? The question answers itself - it can't, in any meaningful way and still retain the Anna title of the controller.

Be careful my science friends, the idea of indeterminism in quantum physics isn't a doorway back into the free will/control space that Anna inhabits. That would just move the "you" and its decisions to a world of randomness - not much freedom of control there.

So next time someone tells you to look up or down, go right ahead and do it. Just don't think you chose to do it in any deep sense.

[1] Self-Conscious vs. Consciousness is akin to being aware of self vs. being aware of surroundings and environment; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness/, and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

[2] https://decodethemind.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/more-brain-connections-than-stars-in-the-universe-no-not-even-close/

[3] Learn more about epiphenomenalism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/

[4] Learn about the complexity of holding determinism as true, including the indeterministic factors all around our world.