Unconscious Choice

[Nakosis]

According to this video, your unconscious mind processes 11 million bit of information per second while consciously you can process about 40 bits per second.

Does this mean the unconscious decisions your brain makes are more reliable than your conscious decisions?

From my own recent experience, when I make a conscious decision, it doesn't usually work out so well. Like I want to purchase a particular **** pattern online. After deciding on a specific one, either they don't come in my size or they are out of stock.

Whereas if I just go with whatever feels right at the moment, which means my unconscious mind has already decide what is best with no conscious input, it usually works out better.

Lately, I've just been letting my unconscious mind make my decisions for me. Trying to make a "conscious" decision, one based on less information than my unconscious mind has seems a waste of time.

When I was younger, we'd call it going with the flow.

 

[F1fan]

I have pointed out this phenomenon many times in response to people claiming we humans have free will, and/or make deliberate choices all the time. No we don't. Studies reveal that we humans mostly make subconscious decisions. They only seem deliberate and conscious because we are aware of our actions afterwards. The role of habits, or the mind seeking confort from depression or distress can result in compulsive behaviors, and these are not deliberate. Nor is there control over these behaviors UNTIL there is some direct confrontation of the roots of these behaviors.

Diets often fail. 12 Step programs only work about 12% of the time. This is because the behaviors are addressed superficially, not the root mental drives and causes.

 

[icehorse]

According to this video, your unconscious mind processes 11 million bit of information per second while consciously you can process about 40 bits per second.

Does this mean the unconscious decisions your brain makes are more reliable than your conscious decisions?

From a cognitive science perspective we can make a distinction between our conscious MIND and our subconscious BRAIN. Our egos reside in the mind, and they think they're in charge of everything. They're not

In fact, our subconscious brains do most of the heavy lifting for us. Obvious things like keeping our hearts beating, but less obvious things like walking. In fact, of all the reliable skills that we possess, our brains are where the skill really resides. Ask yourself what skills do you have that you can accurately explain. If we're honest, the answer is "very few".

Scientists who study skills and expertise use the term "expert intuition" for all those reliable skills that are not explainable.

So the short answer is "yes", most of the decisions you make, come from the subconscious brain, not the conscious mind.

 

[icehorse]

I have pointed out this phenomenon many times in response to people claiming we humans have free will, and/or make deliberate choices all the time.

It seems to me this is the ego talking? Why would you say that subconscious decisions aren't free will?

 

[F1fan]

It seems to me this is the ego talking? Why would you say that subconscious decisions aren't free will?

If free will means any decision the subconscious or conscious mind makes, then any animal that makes decisions can be sai to have free will, and doesn't imply the decisions are smart or wise.

So for the sake of free will arguments the will has to be conscious.

When the subconscious makes decisions it is not acting through the conscious deliberation, but is prossesed nontheless in the brain. This isn't foreign to how our brains work, as we have the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that operate much our our boby functions. Our conscious minds don't direct these functions.

 

[icehorse]

If free will means any decision the subconscious or conscious mind makes, then any animal that makes decisions can be sai to have free will, and doesn't imply the decisions are smart or wise.

So for the sake of free will arguments the will has to be conscious.

I'm not following.. ?

 

[Nakosis]

I'm not following.. ?

What do you mean by free will?
I suspect a lot of the time when we can't understand another's argument regarding free will is because we mean different things when we use the term.

Some people use the term for something that can't possibly exist. Others use a definition which does exist.
So important I think to define what you mean by the term if you are going to discuss it.

 

[icehorse]

If free will means any decision the subconscious or conscious mind makes, then any animal that makes decisions can be sai to have free will, and doesn't imply the decisions are smart or wise.

So for the sake of free will arguments the will has to be conscious.

What do you mean by free will?

The concept of "free will" is thorny at best, easily worthy of its own thread.

But I will say that many animals are conscious, even self aware, and make decisions that are often wise.

 

[F1fan]

I'm not following.. ?

I brought up free will as a flawed example. One of the biggest arguments for a free will is creationists who believe in the Adam and Eve myth. These folks insist A&E ate from the tree of knowledge via free will, and they are to blame for the Fall. So they are arguing that they knew consciously what they were doing, and disobeying God. They don't accept my arguments that they were acting without knowledge or awareness of consequences.