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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Got Free Will? Yes and No.

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free willDo we have free will? To some, the answer is yes, obviously we have free will. Many others say not so fast. It’s a thorny question that has only grown thornier over the past 30 years. That’s because we’re no longer focused so much on whether an external agent or force determines what we do. Now it’s an internal agent or force we’re concerned about—namely the unconscious part of our brain.

It’s probably apparent to most of us that we spend at least part of our time on autopilot—that is, behaving automatically, not consciously registering much of what’s going on around us, or not experiencing a sense of volition or agency. Stimulus A (whether internal or external) triggers reaction B. But the growing consensus of neuroscientists and others is that we spend not only part of our time, but most of our time, on autopilot. Some have tried to make the case that all of our behavior is automatic.

On the one hand, it’s hard to let go of the notion that we have complete control over our every thought, word, feeling, and deed. On the other, that’s a lot of responsibility and a tough row to hoe. The fact that, no matter what we think—or want to think—we don’t always feel in control sets up a conflict we’ve come up with some ingenious methods to resolve.

System 1, our unconscious, keeps us alive, filters what gets into conscious awareness, and initiates most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. System 2, consciousness, very often just goes along with System 1’s recommendations. But not always. System 2 is capable of initiating thoughts and actions on its own, apart from what System 1 suggests. It can also veto System 1’s suggestions.

So one answer to the question about whether or not we have free will is “yes and no.” When it comes to habits, routines, or anything else System 1 is responsible for—when we’re operating on autopilot—we aren’t really acting freely. But when System 2 gives critical attention to System 1’s suggestions and either vetoes or sanctions them—or when System 2 initiates thoughts or actions of its own—we can say that we are acting freely.

There may be no outside agent forcing us to behave a certain way. But since we normally don’t consider the unconscious to be part of “I”—who we think of when we think about who we are—the unconscious feels quite a bit like an “other.” System 1 may be my brain, but it sure doesn’t feel like me.

“Yes and no” seems to be the best answer to the question of whether or not we have free will. It’s important to recognize the situations in which we operate on autopilot because if we think we’re making choices and acting freely when we’re not, we’ll be less likely to look for effective methods to change behavior we want to change, and we won’t be able to see things from any perspective other than our habitual one.

At the same time, if we don’t recognize the situations where we have the capacity to make decisions and act freely, not only will we be in trouble, society and the entire human race will be in trouble, too. Or is this just the norm—part of the human condition?

What do you think?

Anger, Adrenaline, and Arrogance: Addiction to Certainty

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Strong emotions—the ones that amp up adrenaline and cortisol levels—increase our confidence. When we’re angry, for example, we’re more likely to feel certain about whatever position we’ve taken. We’re sure we not only know what we’re talking about, but also that we’re right and any other parties involved are wrong.

This feeling of certainty is an illusion, generated by the amphetamine-like effects of anger, which include kicking our metabolism into a higher gear while narrowing our mental focus. The unconscious part of our brain has a natural tendency to discount anything that doesn’t jibe with what we believe. It already automatically narrows our focus. Adding anger (or actual amphetamines, for that matter) to the mix further constricts our focus, sometimes closing our mind altogether.

When we’re angry, we filter out anything that doesn’t support our position. We focus on one or two aspects of a situation, sometimes taking them entirely out of context, and ignore the rest. Our confidence swells, bolstered by the boost of adrenaline, into over-confidence, even arrogance.

Our brain craves certainty and being right. This can be difficult to compensate for under the best of circumstances. When we’re emotionally aroused, it can be impossible—especially when we don’t recognize what’s going on. We’re used to thinking that the level of confidence we have about something is an accurate indicator of whether or not we’re right about it. Sometimes we are right. But the unconscious part of our brain isn’t concerned with such petty details. It’s less interested in whether we’re actually right and more interested in whether we feel right.

The illusion of certainty can be hard to let go of. Who wants to feel uncertain? Who wants to admit they’re wrong? Who wants to think the powerful sense of confidence they feel isn’t altogether reliable? Too often, we do whatever we can, whatever we have to do, to maintain the illusion of certainty. We refuse to give up the fight, no matter what damage it causes to us or to other people. We’d rather be right than happy. We’d rather be right than free. We’re so addicted to certainty that instead of using our brain, we’re willing to let our brain use us.

How Can You Live Passionately?

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passion

We don’t go looking for a solution until we have a problem to solve.

This is one of those things in life that seems pretty straightforward—and sometimes it is. But surprisingly often it isn’t. It’s more likely to be straightforward when the problem or issue at hand is small or simple and less likely to be straightforward when the problem is big or complex.

Complex problems can be difficult to see clearly. The unconscious part of our brain has a couple of habits that prevent us from seeing and defining complex issues of any kind. For one thing, it’s quick to jump to conclusions and to treat those conclusions as facts. For another, it craves certainty and being right, so it’s more comfortable with things that are easy to understand and that it already knows something about.

The result is that from time to time we go off on wild goose chases seeking a solution to the wrong problem because we asked the wrong question. No matter how good the solution, it won’t solve that particular problem.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the idea—or problem, if you will—of living with passion. If I believe passion means a passion, such as a calling—what and who I am meant to be—then the question I might ask is “What is my passion?” or “How can I find my passion?” That’s not an uncommon way to define the problem. Those are not uncommon questions to ask. And numerous roadmaps and processes are available to assist me—purportedly—in finding and following my passion.

But that’s not the only way to define the problem. In fact, it’s fairly narrow in scope and definition. If I believe living with passion requires finding my passion that makes me an arrow in search of a target, hoping I can hit the bull’s eye. What if I fail in my quest? Am I doomed to the booby prize: a passionless life?

If instead I ask, “How can I live a passionate life?” of “How can I live passionately?” that leads me down an entirely different path and to a much more interesting question: “What gets in the way of living passionately?” Now this is a worthy question to ask.

What gets in the way of living passionately?

I suspect the answer is the same for everyone. What gets in the way is us, specifically the things we tell ourselves, our considerations, our expectations, the preconditions we demand of life, or fear of feeling fear (occasionally known as excitement), and on and on. We’re afraid of stepping up, taking a risk, facing uncertainty, getting hurt or burned, failing, caring too much, or exceeding our reach. The unconscious part of our brain is wired for survival. Passion is definitely not part of its plan.

What gets in the way of living passionately is not our circumstances. It’s our own non-stop mental blah, blah, blah that keeps passion at arm’s length. If we want to live passionately, we can start doing it any time. There’s nothing to search for or to find, either within or without. There’s nothing stopping us from living passionately this very moment but ourselves.

What’s getting in the way of living passionately for you?

A Case for Lucid Waking

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lucid dreaming

You have to hand it to humans. As a species, we are seriously and committedly wrong-headed about so very many things. And we have a high level of confidence about our beliefs and convictions regardless of how much or how little that confidence is warranted.

For example, we think we’re aware (we understand what’s going on) while we’re awake, so it isn’t that much of a leap for some of us to want to be aware of our dreams while we’re dreaming. A Google search for “lucid dreaming” brought up about 673,000 hits, whereas a similar search for “lucid waking” brought up about 10,200. I’m surprised there were that many.

Reportedly, the person who coined the term lucid dreaming—Frederik van Eeden—considered lucid to be synonymous with mental clarity. And therein lies one of the problems. Mental clarity is sorely lacking in the waking lives of most people. This is a fact, not an indictment. We spend most of our days operating on autopilot, at the effect of biases, triggers and cues, and mental processes we have no conscious knowledge of. Most of what’s going on around us is happening outside our awareness. However, we don’t let that diminish our sense of certainty.

We’re very good at coming up with plausible sounding explanations for behavior and events. But just because we can come up with explanations doesn’t mean they’re accurate. Our stories and explanations are developed after the fact to create a cause-and-effect stream that feels like real life. We don’t do it intentionally—at least not usually. It happens automatically, with no effort on our part. It’s how we make sense of the world. Our stories and explanations provide us with a false sense of complacency, comfort, and security. They give us the illusion of mental clarity but not much of the real thing.

And it’s from this vantage point that we set out to develop mental clarity—or the illusion of mental clarity—about our dreams.

My thought is that we might want to redirect our efforts toward lucid waking. If, as a species, we developed greater mental clarity about how we operate while we’re awake, we might be able to take a stab at solving some of the serious problems we face. That seems like a more practical and worthwhile focus for our attention.

How Free Is Your Will?

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Chocolate-Cake

Here are links to a few articles and videos by some of my favorite scientists, researchers, and writers who focus on the brain—specifically on the part of the brain we’re not aware of but which so strongly affects every aspect of our lives.

Of course, much of what is being discovered about how the brain actually works is revolutionary in and of itself. But the access we have to it is no less revolutionary. An internet connection is all it takes to read, watch, or listen to the latest developments. By now, I take that access for granted. But that doesn’t stop me from appreciating it.

Click on the titles to get to the articles.

The Possibilian

David Eagleman, author of Incognito

The brain is a remarkably capable chronometer for most purposes. It can track seconds, minutes, days, and weeks, set off alarms in the morning, at bedtime, on birthdays and anniversaries. Timing is so essential to our survival that it may be the most finely tuned of our senses. 

 When I came across Incognito on a bookstore shelf, I picked it up because I had read (and torn out) this article from The New Yorker. There’s a local connection, too. Eagleman attended Albuquerque Academy, which is only a few minutes away from where I live. So far, he’s the only scientist I’m aware of who uses the terms alien subroutines and zombie systems to describe our unconscious processes.

How Your Mind Works

Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Any video with Daniel Kahneman in it is worth watching. Thinking, Fast and Slow can be a bit of a slog to get through in places (at least if you’re mathematically challenged like I am). But Kahneman’s spoken explanations are disarmingly clear and straightforward.

How Free Is Your Will?

Michael Gazzaniga and Joseph LeDoux

Philosophers have debated for years whether we deliberately make each of the many decisions we make every day, or if our brain does it for us, on autopilot. Neuroscientists have shown, for example, that neurons in the brain initiate our response to various stimuli milliseconds before we’re even aware that we’re taking such an action.

This link includes the video conversation between Gazzaniga and LeDoux along with the song “How Free Is Your Will?” performed by Le Doux’s band The Amygdaloids. The concept of a rock band composed of neuroscientists is mildly mind-bending. But they’re not bad.

Gut Feeling: How Intestinal Bacteria Could Manipulate Your Brain

David DiSalvo, author of What Makes Your Brain Happy, and Why You Should Do the Opposite

We’ve all heard about the bacterial universe within our bodies, but what’s less well known is just how vast this universe is in comparison to the rest of us: bacteria outnumber all of the cells in our body 100 to 1. And just like us, certain bacteria have a taste for certain nutrients, and they’ve developed ways of influencing their hosts to deliver more of their preferred vittles to the dinner table.

Yes, DiSalvo says, your brain may have made you eat that huge piece of chocolate cake. But apparently “the nervous system superhighway that runs from the digestive system all the way to the base of the brain” is a two-way street. What you eat can influence your brain in constructive–or non-constructive–ways.

The Invisible Gorilla (featuring Daniel Simons)

If you haven’t seen this one yet, just watch it.

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