Do We Consciously Pick Our Choices?

Do we author our choices? Are our conscious minds in control? Or do we watch our actions happen?
This was a section of a longer video. But I decided that video doesn’t need this section. But I still liked it so here you go.
Reddit / thisplace
Further watching/reading
Crash Course on Free will
• Determinism vs Free Wi...
Sam Harris on Free Will
• Sam Harris on "Free Will"
Dschinghis Khan- Moskau
• Dschinghis Khan - Moskau
Effects of child abuse
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
Pyschopathy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychop...
Patreon patreon.com/user?u=849925

[@joescott]

Anybody interested in this subject should check out the book "Who's In Charge" by Michael Gazzaniga. Explores how consciousness works in the brain the the semi-conscious modules that make decisions before you're consciously aware of it. Fascinating book.

[@Shangori]

+Butthurt McWowimacunt The voices in my head tell me so...

[@Aweseb64]

You should make podcasts. You have a nice, almost quiet voice and you have a lot to talk about. You can probably make them a lot faster than videos, too.

[@usedstarfighter9605]

this.

[@NinjaWatermelon42]

I would love to hear this guy do a podcast!

[@shelbytull2281]

I don't listen to podcasts, but if he made them, I'd definitely start

[@Aweseb64]

Why can't all of you guys like my comment instead of replying basically "like"

[@usedstarfighter9605]

if we only like, your comment wont go to the top of the comments as fast as if we comment, plus it notifies you about how many people agree

[@stipe7cronaldo7]

Whenever someone tells me to quickly think of something, whether it is a city, fruit, tool, etc, nothing ever comes up. I never understood how people can even do that.

[@LloydLynx]

Probably some obscure mental disorder, to lazy to look it up though.

[@taniwha5441]

You're not alone. For me I think of nothing because my brain waits for purpose. I don't do randomness. "Think of a city" or "think of an animal". But based on what? My favourite? An interesting one? Should I try to be interesting or pick the most convenient animal? Out of all these options you want me to choose one based on nothing?

[@dm_nimbus]

Dublin and Dubai popped into my head because I saw them on the preview

[@dm_nimbus]

Or so I've told myself

[@dm_nimbus]

And now Moskau is stuck in my head

[@Crick1952]

+James Craver Me too on that last one

[@KsPRNightrmare]

did you get that profile picture from in a nutshell's patreon?

[@dm_nimbus]

Yes

[@93hickey]

Irish person here, I still find Irish accents the best.

[@ThisPlaceChannel]

What other accents do you like?

[@Smusie]

I love the irish accent too :) :) sadly i'm from germany where we learn british/american english. Do you want to send me some voice recordings of yours? :D

[@Gusararr]

+Al lena Do you wanna some voice recordings of russian accent? I can give you some :)

[@93hickey]

This Place Women in the south of germany have such a soft sounding accent. It's like butter. Scottish accents can be nice too (can equally be awful though). britain has so many different accents which to me seem either too structured and unnatural or almost incomprehensible. New zealand accent is ok too.

[@93hickey]

Cockney, Geordie, Scouse are all terrible in my opinion. The London accent (I don't know what its called really) sounds a bit posh for me. And R.P. reminds me that the Ireland used to be part of the British empire, Its never good when an Irish person is reminded of that :P. Just to clarify I don't like many irish accents either, some are horrible I just love some more than anywhere else and on average I think the Irish accent is quite lyrical and has a happy or joking tone to it. Also, hibernian english is very polite and is known as one of the most "correct" dialects in the world. Its why ireland has produced so many great writers and poets over the years, and continues to do so.

[@DrawCuriosity]

As someone who's had severe OCD, Intrusive thoughts really teach you that we have way less control over our mind than we think, but it's funny when it is in disagreement with what we would want to think that we notice. :)

[@adityakhanna113]

".. control over mind....than we think.." Does control over mind make sense? Aren't we that thing itself? How do you think you control your mind? Am I nothing but my thoughts? If that's all, then what does intrusive thought even mean? Is it analogous to a tumor? Why am I asking so many questions? Why am I typing what I am thinking? Why did I even type that!? Secondly, not to be a grammar nazi or anything, but I do think(!) that there should be a comma after "think"... in last line. It's bugging me. Really. Thanks :)

[@DrawCuriosity]

I think I meant that we notice it. I probably wrote that comment on mobile, ill try to write a coherent answer on my laptop xD

[@adityakhanna113]

Draw Curiosity Yes, a comma in the right place clearly would convey your message. Secondly, Your channel's great!

[@linguaphilly]

Seattle. I know literally nothing about Seattle except for it being a city that exists somewhere in the US. I don't remember hearing or seeing the name anywhere today. The unconscious mind is really enigmatic and I kinda love that

[@linguaphilly]

Also I'm a hard determinist but I avoid thinking about it because it will seriously mess with your head

[@alexmallen5765]

+TRASH yeah its pretty dangerous

[@FF-qo6rm]

TRASH. There's a discussion here to be had about the amount of spotlight we give to the "unconscious mind". It's pretty easy to assign any action to it honestly. peculiar topic indeed

[@columbus8myhw]

Yeah it's on the top-left

[@eris4734]

Atlanta. Is that even a city? It sounds like a city. A country? I don't remember hearing about it at all recently. Hmm... Edit: it's the capital of Georgia, USA. I looked it up.

[@marco1824]

Understanding we don't have free will can make us less judgamental about other people and ourselves.

[@simonjoss4000]

Yeah totally agree. Its an argument you rarely hear regarding determinism, unfortunately. Since I accepted, that free will doesnt exist, im way more understanding and forgiving and plus, im not able to really hate anyone in the longrun :)

[@traywor1615]

The weird thing is, your determined mind found out, that it is determined and determined to be less judgemental about other people... because they are determined.

[@internettevarolanadam]

@@traywor1615 well. We cant help it. We couldn't do otherwise.

[@rotorblade9508]

I had this tendency before realizing free will doesn’t exist but sometimes I used to judge people I considered evil. The same now, I can’t help it

[@matthewflaherty3263]

Your channel is the best. Whenever you upload vids, it's like a treat for waiting so long. Which is worth it btw, I'll wait a year just to watch another episode.

[@cOmAtOrAn]

When you asked to name another city, "France" immediately popped into my head. It was quickly followed by "Wait, that's not a city. Better try again." Then my mind immediately generated "France" again.

[@AphidKirby]

This is great! I wrote a little article about how human behavior and thought is completely guided by psychology and biology, following the same reasoning of "if any of these factors were controlled by me, how can the outcome be controlled by me". This reminded of me of that, Thanks for your videos!

[@MrAntieMatter]

Congratulations on one hundred thousand subscribers! :)

[@soraspsp]

I think the idea of "control" and conscious decision making are just antiquated ways of thinking on the subject. Our experience is the culmination of all the neurons firing in our brains, and the disillusion that we have when coming to decisions like this are just different areas of the brain agreeing/disagreeing with each other. Perhaps the act of deciding something, to filter through many different ideas, is the most vocal and active area of the brain that we primarily call "us".

[@internettevarolanadam]

And it leads us to the question "is this really me, a single entity, or just bunch of atoms pushing each other just like falling rocks creating an avalanche?

[@manheap12]

Always love your videos my man. You need more subscribers!!

[@chrismiller4364]

I love your videos dude, LOVE EM

[@rosebellspring9585]

GOOD VIDEO i would just like to say how much i love it every time you post a video

[@Tjerk176197]

Please make more videos! they're really good

[@sleepyzeph]

Great video. I've been interested in this topic for a while now, but none of my friends are willing to listen to several hours of Sam Harris' talks. Condensing the idea down to 5 minutes is very nice.

[@demonstructie]

Excellent video.

[@simbadda12]

youre baaack!!!

[@litel_snek3506]

I love your videos dude keep it up

[@applesnap6707]

YES NEW VIDEO

[@carsonbarlow348]

Just when I thought I was done having existential crisises. Thanks for that!

[@MisterCooler]

Damn this is one of those videos that made me TRULY think. Thank you, guy

[@justindie7543]

Who the hell buys a $100 toaster? If it were up to me, I'd buy a $15 toaster off Amazon and give the $85 to charity. Win win.

[@Raven1T2]

Ok but help a kid for a week with 85 dollars and a trash toaster for yourself, or help yourself for 30 years with an expensive high quality toaster. I choose the high quality toaster, because each choice helps a person, but one helps a person for longer. Either way you spend $100. Also that's the same argument as giving all your money to charity when you bought a 5,000 dollar car. Because who the hell buys a maserati, i'd rather give a few hundred thousand I don't have to charity.

[@Justmye]

What you're saying here gets me thinking about the idea of severing the connection between the two brain hemispheres and that as observing the behavior of one consciousness you understand that in a pretty literal way, one of the hemispheres listens to the other while the other isn't even aware of the fact that the other one is present... just as if you're to entities in one ... I think CGP Grey did a really cool video on this...

[@InnaciKorushka]

I have gone through classes before, and when you brushed over values, that's the core determining factor. Often, as you said, people are guided by their values and if they let emotion drive them instead of them controlling their emotions, their behaviors will only be lossely conscious, however you can train yourself to be in more control and you can look deeper into understanding exactly how you've come a decision or why you are going to do an action. Knee jerk emotions and reactions start to phase out. If you take this concept "too far" then to others, you often seem to becone cold and emotionless. People who do this often find little use for emotions other than to perpetuate social situations. Easy example, many people(not all) behave very different in front of others versus alone. Alone, typically there are less outward emotions such as laughing out loud, smiling, frowning, etc. So, in essence, you ~can~ control your emotions and then more readily understand how and why you've come to conclusions. Often, people find that they do things almost entirely based upon passed experiences of consequences.

[@woihjsd]

Interesting. I can only make choices on things that are in my limited circle of knowledge (reality as i know it), so this makes sense to me. Even if i don't conciously choose my options, i can choose within those. like your examples: dublin, new delhi, new york, moscow. That's the beginning of concious decision. Before that point, there certainly isnt a "decision" being made. I don't think it dimishes the power of concious choice, but merely exposes the range and limit of it. Good video. Thanks for sharing.

[@zerosixzerosix]

Hey Jesse did you get the city idea from Sam Harris? I saw him do a similar thing a while back. I love the videos so please keep them coming!!

[@Geoffreyvexer]

Sees video posted: squeaks with joy.

[@KwakuSven]

Great video :-)

[@stm7810]

This is a very good video for introducing the idea, it is one my parents get in a hissy fit over because it disagrees with their irrational beliefs.

[@durjoychanda4611]

What you've said have blown my mind! Did you think these out, or have you learned those somewhere. If learned I would love to know where.

[@HarriW]

2:03 The voice in my head stated yes at me before I felt I had thought it through

[@traywor1615]

In my mind, the voice stated no. Then i had to laugh, because it felt like it was just talking.

[@boium.]

1:41 OMG I also thaught about that song at the same time

[@emmettdel]

Such an underrated channel

[@Conglomeration]

Keep it up!

[@subh1]

For a moment I read, "Do we consciously pick our noses?"

[@martinsandbach7408]

thanks Sam Harris

[@GoPieman]

I know some people might complain about things not being defined too well, but I think it's clear, as you are talking about the thought process of what we refer to as decision, and that you're talking about the free will that determinists deny existing and compatibalists dismiss as nonsensical, only giving value to the social/political/(other humanity sciences) meanings. whatever your decision, there is a reason, or many, and if other possible decisions had reasons too, there are reasons to go with reasons. simplifying, in decision making you can only find: -reasons (including critical thinking, "filters", taste, conditioning, and all links between them) -randomness (which arguably might always include subconscious reasons, though that's another topic) All reasons have their own reasons, an endless chain that always goes beyond the moment of the decision, eventually also go outside the subject's mind. All randomness is inherently not a decision. Free will - a "willed will" - requires some sort of additional element that bypasses reason and causality without being random, the only clue being the process of experience itself, which evolution might have given the useful illusion of free will. It can be considered there's some sort of free-will-granting physics in the universe but is it likely, compared to simpler explanations? (metaphysical) Free will is a completely empty concept, even without going into neurological evidence, it's very easy to argue against because it has very little to stand on besides how we "feel" it.

[@MrAntieMatter]

Yay!

[@davidgold3nrose]

It's not 'responsibility' it's basic human generosity, compassion, and empathy

[@palebluedot7435]

Nae Harris and how did you come to that conclusio

[@AnishJBhave]

Nice video 👍

[@mcanna5115]

no fake sponsor?? :( ok, i guess...

[@MrAntieMatter]

What's wrong with not having free will?

[@drgore1797]

In my opinion, nothing. However I do believe that it is still very important for us to understand how much control we have and (in my opinion) I think many people, probably myself included, delude themselves on how much control they have.

[@niksi6102]

In my opinion, not having free will simply doesn't make sense. Let's say you know the whole future of the universe, if you know everything that is going to happen you can still change it right? And also the whole quantum mechanics thing doesn't allow for it. We make conscious decisions if we take into consideration everything and think about it. Of course we can't choose which cities appear on our mind when we think about them, because imagine if the conscious mind has to do all that...

[@thejoshhartley]

+DontStopMeNow Just because the future isn't set in stone, doesn't mean we have free will. There are multiple outcomes when you role a set of dice, it doesn't mean that it has free will. It didn't choose to land on a 6.

[@MrAntieMatter]

What if a die thought it had free will? The die would think that everything it does is controlled by it. Do when you roll it and lands with 6 up, it will tell you it made the decision to land 6 up, when really it was completely out of it's control.

[@justindie7543]

If a wrong decision is made, and I know that I was the one that made the decision, it's on me, and the only person that it affects is me. Free will is way more comforting psychologically than having every area of your life dictated by someone or something else, even if it has your best intentions in mind.

[@brandonhall6084]

Dublin. Because I saw it in the thumbnail.

[@kimtsi]

nice video!

[@azgarth1]

Lot of closed questions here. "Did it feel like X?" vs "what did it feel like?". Aside from the steering questions, good vid.

[@yarde.n]

my first ones were also new york and tokyo!

[@RoryRose_]

I also said New York at the beginning!

[@Xp_Iggy]

Ok, I see your point, but I think, that while the conscious mind may not come up with the deliberations, it is what makes you conscious of them. I don’t know what comes up with the deliberations, maybe it’s primal or something, but the fact that you are conscious when you make deliberations, and it feels like that is what even allows you to act on those decisions, it certainly feels like the conscious mind is making some kind of difference, even if we don’t know what that difference is. It could be holding ideas or how we interpret, not so much expand on ideas. Of corse that leaves the question of what comes up with ideas, which might be a mix of knowledge and experience or something. I don’t really know. The only thing I do know is this made a lot more sense in my head. The part of my head it made sense in, that we may never know.

[@taniwha5441]

In this example at least, I think I consciously choose. Nothing pops into my head without me reaching for it. If you tell me to choose a city, I wait - my brain won't automatically move without knowing why you want me to choose. Should I pick where I'd like to live? What city I like best? Etc. I wait for specification. So when I ended up picking, it was because I consciously pushed my thoughts toward a city before I ran out of time. Therefore the choice was made based on "quickest neurological pathway" which, as logically follows, is the place I live. The place whose name I interact with most. Why should another name even come to mind? There's nothing leading me there. Unless the question was to list every city I know, in which case I systematically sweep from one side of the world to the other. With that said, I agree that thoughts in general pass through my mind automatically rather than in a controlled manner.

[@jaschabull2365]

I thought of Nuremberg. Probably because when told to think of a place, I think of Germany, likely because Europe is the first continent I learned about in geography and Germany is kind of in the middle of Europe, and when I realized I'd thought of a country, not a city, I thought of a city in Germany (Nuremberg was probably first for having the word "berg" in its name, which means city). This kind of reminds me of being in psychology class this year and talking about prototypes, and discussing why one thing was more prototypical than the other (so why when someone mentions birds, most people usually think of robins before penguins etc).

[@debjyotihaldar3701]

Dublin because I live there

[@samk.9415]

ha! flogging molly. I was listening to the same song.

[@zacklight5622]

With practice you can control your emotions. What occurs to us first basically comes down to what we practices choosing in the past, so if we take longer to decide, we're more likely to choose something we haven't chosen in the past, and eventually we can control our choosing habits. Of course, this comes down to what we mean by control. If you make a decision about how you will act if given the chance, and years later act the way you chose, is this a greater degree of control?

[@CloseYetFar]

I picked NYC too. But I know exactly why. NYC is very close to me so its plastered all over my memory and easy to dig out. I was only told to pick one, so I made the decision to go with the first choice because its easiest to stop once the condition is met. My choice was not so much NYC, but a decision to make the task as easy as possible. In fact, I see the opposite of the video claim. I made lots of conscious decisions, all about how to make the task most enjoyable. In this case it was to make it simple and easy. There was no criteria for the city I picked, so I made my own criteria around the task process. Another decision. I do have control over my thoughts. I'm sure there is no way to prove it to another person, but I know my thoughts are my decisions. I do have free will and if I plan to hurt someone, I am responsible for that decision.

[@HanibiSW]

I always imagine that there is a deeper subconscious that knows things our conscious mind can't comprehend or notice. Even more crazy is my idea that this deeper level controls us and tells us what to believe, like we are its puppet. Probably just making justification for my laziness...

[@Darth_Insidious]

Because we feel comfort in feeling like we make our own choices

[@gokce9521]

i took the third option and did not chose any cities instead thought of food very hard

[@kaishang6406]

list of cities I've lived in. picked the one I've lived in for the longest.

[@0xs]

0:15 I thought newyork too

[@thomaskaldahl196]

I was really looking forward to an advert from EvNToast™

[@TheAstraEffect]

I felt like I was in control I thought both my options -on the last one- through

[@egonics2068]

"think of a city, and say that city out loud" me: "ENGLAND"

[@petterhouting7484]

Egonics no it's godchurch

[@unflexian]

new york is my street Vladivostok is my favorite mode of transport

[@neonmarkov6544]

CGP Grey made an incredible video about this, with Kurzgesagt IIRC

[@SGresponse]

Dat Dschinghis Khan reference... JAWOHL!

[@TristanBomber]

It took me about half a second for me to blurt out Seattle. I didn't even _consider_ other cities. But I don't live in Seattle. Sure, I've been to Seattle, and it's a pretty nice city, and I wouldn't mind living there, and I like rain, so maybe that's why. But I'd probably enjoy living in Vancouver, Copenhagen, Berlin or Stockholm (which were the next cities to come up). And what's more, I didn't even _think about_ the city I grew up - Phoenix - until after watching the entire video and writing this comment! I also didn't think about Los Angeles, where I've also been, or any other cities in the US other than Seattle.

[@ProfessorSyndicateFranklai]

Paris, because I finished a 13 hour course on it.

[@BankruptGreek]

about the start of the video I actually didnt get the names of cities in my head when you asked straight away, as a non native speaker I had to think about the concept of "city" before one popped in my head

[@RomanNumural9]

I thought of countries and provinces, as soon as I thought of a single City name, I chose that one. It felt like the name was a bubble rising to the surface of a pond, one I noticed it I responded.

[@VEVOJavier]

what i thought when he asked was simply : 'um, Jakarta'

[@jodyvaughnlawrence]

For those looking for a good podcast, I highly recommend Sam Harris' one. He talks about a lot of the kinds of topics done by This Place, and more specifically concerning this video, he has looked into the matter of Free Will in depth and has written a book about it.

[@rumory]

i feel like my mind has never been blanker while watching this video also, i heard somewhere that when you're feeling like you're being watched your brain doesn't tell you why you feel you're being watched you just feel it, perhaps your brain is just doing quick calculations and just giving you the results instead of the steps

[@celivalg]

well your are digging into what I consider the basic wiring of our brains, the logic board if you want

[@tryingmybest206]

Venice, a city i haven't been to in years

[@kkeennddaall]

my brain panicked when you said to say the city cause i hadnt thought of one yet, and i thought you meant IMMEDIATELY ,, so i just spurted out a random consonant and then molded a city out of it. Johannesburg. I had to verify it was even a real life city or if my brain was just making up shit lmao

[@orhununyeri]

You shape your brain structure with every thing you experienced. In your brain, the "city" pattern is inserted from knowledge. And when this pattern is called, the most dominant city in the access at that moment (the dominant city can change since the brain's state is constantly changing) appears in our heads.

[@Potoaster]

City thing was bad example for me because I chose Chicago, as I live there.

[@maybelikealittlebit]

where's the full version am I dumb and can't find it on reddit?

[@alexanderreusens7633]

I think most people make decisions based on feelings, and only after they have chosen, they think about the reasons why their decisions is justified.

[@vortex_master]

30 seconds in, before anything was said, I started freaking out because I had Seattle and Houston in my head, and the first time I chose Houston for an unknown reason and the second time, I chose Seattle because I was trying to figure out why I didn't chose it. Then I paused the video to figure out why those two cities where first in my head. The reasons? I watched a video in which people talked about Houston and your title card had an outline of Seattle, which reminded me of Frasier.

[@skeletonxf]

I'd recommend you or viewers also check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbow_Room_(book) by Daniel Dennett as quite a contrast to Sam Harris.

[@themasstermwahahahah]

I thought of Chicago and then new York next

[@Fiberzs]

Rip

[@evo7325]

+This_Place Do you know about the 2-factor theory of emotion? Interesting concept concerning free will and feelings. You might be interested and i am interested what you might have to say about it. Also known as Schachter-Singer theory. thx for reading

[@finnsstudio]

The brain is built of biases develop through a lifetime. Similar to a computer neural net. In my opinion consciousness is the observation of that neural net. what makes it special is you get to pick where that observation goes. for example you can choose to fill your consciousness with just the breath. (this is called breathing meditation.) or you can really enjoy that donut. that directing of attention is free will. aside from that we're driven purely on the biases in our brain.

[@georgiaangeletakis5811]

I don't know about you, but the answer to the first question was the city I used to live in. It was just a gut reaction. When I tried to think longer nothing popped into my head and I had to actually think about the cities I knew.

[@fightocondria]

Pausing to leave a comment. When you tell me to pick a city at random, my thought, since I don't have a globe handy, is to picture a globe spinning and stopping it on a city. I don't think of the reasons why. I'm fully aware I can only pick cities that I have heard of before, I am fully aware that I am more likely to pick something I've interacted with in some way recently.

[@RapierNeedleCrime]

i chose bangkok even though I have never been there and I don't have any connections to the city at all. I really have no clue why I chose it.

[@jonneagle4892]

I thought of New New York from Futurama

[@believe29ox]

I mean I chose New York cause I was there three days ago and I want to go to college there, is that not a conscious choice?

[@ycs5555]

Everything is about CAUSE & EFFECT. 👍

[@jeweljohn833]

For some reason I thought of Scandinavia even though that isn't even a city xD

[@preranapoudel]

Dayummmmm.. I chose New York too😂 idk how or why

[@Twyzan]

First two to come to my head were Cincinnati and Mississippi. I have no idea whether Cincinnati is a city and I'm pretty sure Mississippi isn't. They came to me cause they sound similar to city and since I was feeling rushed, I picked the first one that came to my head. Cincinnati has also been in my head recently. #DicksOutForHarambe

[@tryingmybest206]

Alan Watts - there are no mistakes

[@equleart]

My solution: A lot of backtracking, consciously choosing your values and principles and loooots of introspective. I like to think that I think about what actions I take at all times. Even simple ones like when to take a piss. I also consciously choose my values. The question then is why do certain values seem right to me? Because I watch a lot of anime and read a lot, the "reject all bad things" kinda got to me. At the same time I'm an educated person and a realist. I see no value in being hardheaded with something that simply won't work. Backtrack all your thoughts and decisions. Know who you are and why. And don't make impulsive decisions.

[@neversurrenderinlife]

Baltimore I don't remember where i heard it but Baltimore it is

[@MinecraftTestSquad]

I couldn't think of anything then rushed I thought of London. I had no choice, it was the only thing I could think of.