Friday, October 5, 2012
Who's In Charge Here?
Let's think about free will (follow this for a new reading) and how we choose (you'll need an hour for this one). Do some writing for Tuesday morning in which you reflect on the
decisions you make in the process of decoding these implications. NB: you're writing about your observations of the ways you are thinking, not just what you are thinking. To what extent are your understandings decisions that you control? Are you in command of the knowledge that you create?
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After reading the article and listening to the radio download, I find that I am and will always be deciding. Whether it be seven seconds in my brain before it reaches the front of my mind a decision is always at play. Right now for instance my brain is constantly working to decide what I will type next,or what idea will unfold, while simultaneously trying to remember what the question was. The push and pull of my mind direct me. I say push and pull because at this moment there is a constant flow of ideas being pushed to the front of my mind then quickly pulled back after I decide that they are no good. Right now my brain feels similar to a hard drive, an overloaded hard drive. After a short time the hard drive malfunctions and I loose most of the data that I have been working so hard to contain, this is where I loose control. For example while typing that sentence I just put an entire piece of chocolate into my mouth that I really should have used three bites to consume. As they described in the radio broadcast, with all that was going on through my head the little angel of logic was lost amidst the hustle and bustle of the words racing through my head that I would like to type out for this post. A voice inside my head is on replay saying "over thinking, you are over thinking, stop over thinking". Just like that man and his apple, he went for the biggest most expensive one because it seemed the most likely winner, however he later found out that the simple inexpensive apple (with the awesome name) had a far nicer taste. What was his dilemma ? Over analysis. Though according to the article we as humans do not have as much control to think what think is as we thought ( think about it). Our subconscious makes the decision before we even realize we have. So, what have I learned? My conscious decisions are from my subconscious, the logical decisions can be the wrong ones, never eat a korean pear apple, I've finished all of my chocolate because of this post, and my hard drive has exploded for the rest of my math homework which will definitely contain more then seven numbers. Wonderful.
ReplyDelete~Thinking is an ongoing process that never stops until you are dead. Even when you are sleeping your brain create dreams. I think way too much about everything. Whenever I think about anything I always question what I am about to do. For example multiple-choice tests, in the most common multiple choice test there are four possible answers that one is given. There is always the “way out there” answer, the “I doubt it” and then I’m usually stuck between two. At this moment, unless I am a hundred percent sure of the answer, questions begin to rush through my brain. What is the answer? Can I bet my life on it? I can’t get another wrong, am I sure? Wait, I already had two “C” answers before, so this can’t be right. My mind processes way to many scenarios for me to understand, so I usually end up choosing the answer of the letter that hasn’t been chosen recently. –I know this is not good, but this is how my brain functions. I analyze what could be the possible answer like how someone might overthink what kind of cereal he or she wants. Too many choices come into effect that my brain is over loaded, and eventually turns on the “emotional” part of my brain, which causes me to stress.
ReplyDelete~The understandings that I control are slim compared to what my brain controls. Overall I do make the decisions, but it’s with the help of my mind over analyzing everything before giving me a straight answer. In the podcast it was said that the brain keeps the bodies’ organ’s safe by looking for parts, and putting them all together to make a whole. A gut feeling is just an average of what you have already heard, your brain spits out information that is all morphed together. Since we starting living, our brains have been collecting information that will contribute to how we think for the rest of our lives. This proves that when you think you’ve made a decision on a specific moment, you really haven’t and that your brain has known for a long time.
~I don’t believe in free will, when you or your brain decided to do something it is based on already acquired knowledge that has been put together. There is always knowledge lingering in your head that influence how we decide to do things. I know that I think to much about think that have little importance, but I don’t think I can control this part of my behavior. I have lived for over sixteen years, and have a lot of important and useless knowledge stored, which is used in my every day thinking. My brain is the control center of ME, and ultimately controls everything thing I think or do.
~I think that I am in control of the knowledge I create, but it happens before I use or discover it. I love to think, but sometimes it takes over my brain until the point I don’t understand what I want to say. My brain controls what I think, and I consider my brain, who I am, because it is what is controlling how I function, what I think, and how I think. What I am not in control of is the quantity of the knowledge I create, because of how the average brain functions. When I was hearing about the “Magic #7 plus of minus two” experiment I made me realize how much our brains really can obtain preliminarily knowledge. This type of knowledge rests on the top of the brain that screws up one’s reasoning because of the dual systems. There are two sides: the rational, and the emotional that are constantly at war. This makes sense to me, because when I am pondering a “juicy” or “big” piece of knowledge my brain is constantly going back and forth with two separate answers, which will end up with myself being overwhelmed.
ReplyDelete~Memories are fragments that have been put together from knowledge already acquired, and what happens is it “bubbles up into feeling” which leads to a piece of knowledge one creates. This assignment has really got me thinking, but has me question- how am I answering THESE questions. Have I known this information for years? Or is this just a gut feeling that is made up of information stored at the top of my mind? I really don’t know, but its very interesting learning about how I think, or is this already knowledge I’ve known for year? Who knows?
While reading about free will, I began to change my understanding about the influence that I have on many decisions in my life. It took me time to comprehend what John-Dylan Haynes meant by saying; "How can I call a will 'mine' if I don't even know when it occurred and what it has decided to do?” This made me question many ways that I am used to thinking. One of the ways that I use in order to think is analyzing things and applying reasoning in everything. John-Dylan introduced a new concept to me of uncertainty of things that I am thinking. Before reading his analysis, I trusted my decisions in the process of decoding implications. When I meet concepts that have hidden meanings in them, I always use logic and reasoning in order to decode the implications.
ReplyDeleteMy understandings are partially decisions that I control. In order to understand something, my logic and emotions get involved. Since I am not in the control of my emotions, sometimes my understandings are influenced by my emotions. On the other hand, I use logic in order to comprehend things better but some of the times I am not in control of the outcome because my logic is greatly influenced by the environment that I am living in.
Most of the times I am not in command of the knowledge that I create. As I mentioned above, sometimes emotions get involved and I don’t have the ability of controlling which leads to the creation of knowledge that is highly influenced by emotions and not by me.
Free will and how we choose are largely affected by a person’s prior experiences. For me, free will is more of an initial reaction and how we choose is more part of the thought process. I think free will is affected more by immediate factors, like the cold versus hot coffee test. How we choose is decided by our prior knowledge. When listening to the download, the part about the guy in the cereal aisle made me think of my experiences at college fairs.
ReplyDeleteAs I am walking up and down the rows of tables trying to figure out if I have any connection in my mind to this college or that university. This is all while trying to understand what type of school each one is by looking through the pamphlets being forced into my arms. My free will to judge the school is consumed immediately by the picture on the cover (which is almost always a smiling student), and I think this is what school are trying to do, they want me to perceive their school in a certain way. Then as I learn more about the school my opinion (or how I choose) is changed by my thoughts on important issues like number of undergraduate students or what division athletics they are.
My understandings of the schools were only partially my control. What I had already known took some of the control away and also what kind of information I received from the school rep. This applies to all situations. If you have already made prejudges about something in the past then it will affected how you perceive it in the moment. Knowledge you create can be tainted by others but overall you are in full command of this knowledge.
It could be said that to a certain extent, no one is in command of the knowledge they create, both before and after it is created.
ReplyDelete"There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!"
Certainly, one can more or less understand what kind of knowledge they want to create, and take steps to achieve this, but one cannot be sure of how this knowledge will effect them, with what bias it came to them, or how skewed their account is as compared to others who claim to know the same thing. Shortly after listening to the radio download, I took an implicit association test (aka unintentional bias) and was quite surprised at the results. (you'll find the test here--> https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/)Without revealing those results, I will say that several results were not ones I would have expected, nor would they have been my answer had someone simply asked me the question. I realized that my brain has little opinions of it's own which I cannot necessarily change. I did not command this knowledge, and yet I clearly did. I was not in control of this, but subconsciously I was. My understandings were clearly not all decisions that I control, as evidenced by my results.
While reading the free will article and listening the radiolab, I found myself thinking of scrolling down, about what happens if all these people are wrong and wasting their time on useless experiments. Thinking is something that come naturally to every human for their entire life. I found myself thinking about what the speakers and the writers were thinking about. Were they reading of a paper or speaking out of their own knowledge? The different ways of analyzing the brain, I found quite interesting, how there are so many different theories, for every piece of this investigation of free will. The investigations which these neurologists are using to follow brain movement are not reenacting the same brain movement that is present during a test. Last week during a riding lesson, I was extremely nervous, for no reason. I knew the horse I was on but my instructor was intimidating on that particular day. Everything that I did I questioned myself if that was correct, even though I did the same thin, the same way in every other lesson. In shows or dance competitions, right before I enter thing ring or step onto the stage I get very nervous, even though I have done them both a million times over. My stomach gets queasy and I breathe heavier and faster. I do not know if I create these feelings before I am aware of them or if my mind creates them because of the situation.
ReplyDeleteI believe that I am in control of my own decisions. Even if I think of them before I am truly aware of them they are still my thoughts. If I think am anticipating something, and decide to be nervous about it, that is a decision that I have made, although it may be before I am aware of my own decision, since it came from me and no other immediate influence. I think that the decisions that I make are my own and of my own free will. I think of it as a system; there is a lightbulb moment in the back of my brain, and from there the idea travels through check points through my brain and at each check point it is chiseled and refined into something comprehendible, and once it is through going through those check points it is presented to my ultimate decision making section of my brain which is where I become aware of it. I believe this because there are times when I think of something really fast and then I am not able to remember hat it is or what it even involved, this is an example of the idea going off track, reaching my awareness before I am able to comprehend it.
I do believe that I am in command of the knowledge that I create. The knowledge that I create is what I chose to remember or what my mind thinks that I would benefit from. The difference between myself immediately deciding and my mind holding it tight is that I may not realize its significance but the “check points” of my mind notice that someday I will benefit from that information. It is like a scary movie, most people who watch scary movies will never forget the really creepy part where the person gets killed or when they saw the creepy eyes looking through the window. They may not want to remember these unpleasant images but their mind may feel that it is necessary for the awareness that not everything is as safe as it seems.
Going off of what Pacifique said about emotions. I do believe that emotions have a way of effecting your decision but only when they reach your ultimate decision making area of your brain. Before that the check points do not care about what you are feeling, but if you are presented with a positive idea and you are in a bad mood or are not fond of that particular person or action at the moment, your decision over all will be to disregard the idea due to your emotions; had those emotions differed or if they had been presented at a different time then they may not have been swiped into the idea recycling bin.
Throughout the reading and the listening, I found myself constantly questioning every immediate thought. I do not mean questioning the validity of them, but rather the ways in which they were produced. I pondered over whether I would choose the fruit or the cake-- I knew it would be cake. But, I was interested to know whether I, myself, would do as most did that had the two-digit numbers and choose the fruit. Soon after, I came to the conclusion that my subconscious that contains all of my diluted feelings, thoughts, memories, and experiences would probably not allow me to choose the fruit because I love cake too much. I’ve always strived to be a logical person, many times to the point of resembling Spock. Then, I realized I was ruminating how often it is subconsciously my feelings making the decisions for me. I was thinking and thinking and creating all these thoughts until I stopped with the final thought that If I don’t have free will, I’m trapped inside my own mind.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that I am not in command of the knowledge I create for myself. This is because whether it be false knowledge, in civilization, overhearing a conversation is inevitable. If I so choose to, I may block my ears to information I wish not to consume. I also have the power to hear, but not develop. I may control my own ignorance, but I’ve often sat in a train and overheard discussions, opinions, reviews, and exchanges of statements that could be either fact or fiction. The point is, I am constantly surrounded by people, and I cannot control those people. Neither their words nor actions, therefore, knowledge shared is knowledge gained--whether intentional or not.
Although, the extent to which I understand the knowledge handed to me is my choice and not my choice. If it is the chemicals, so be it! If it is single-handedly my logic, they’re both me. As stated previously, I am in charge of my own ignorance. I may overhear a fact, but not develop upon it either because it sparks no interest to me, I do not have the time, etc. Overhearing but not developing my knowledge is the decision to not understand or to not fully grasp what ever it may be. But, we are all born with a certain ability to comprehend. 2+2 (in English mathematics). It equals 4. Stoneleigh-Burnham’s school mascot is an owl. I know, and I understand. The words are straight-forward and coherent. But, if you gave me calculus, it would be my choice to understand or not, because I would have to dive deeper into a calculus problem considering I haven’t taken the course yet. If the knowledge is easy enough, my brain automatically makes sense of them, and I am not in control because immediate thoughts come from stored pretext or “common sense.” My conscience cannot reject them. But, if the knowledge is more complex and requires research or patience to understand, it becomes a decision to move forward and understand my knowledge.
I first believed that a decision made by a person could be rational or irrational depending on their personality. Rational people tend to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of their situation before making decisions. Irrational people tend to ignore logic and make decisions based on their desires. However, my opinion changed after listening to the link provided above.
ReplyDeleteThere really is no such thing as a rational decision. No matter how minute, a part of our brain draws parallels to our previous experiences of an object related to our decision and involuntarily triggers a certain response through it; whether it be an achingly small feeling of discomfort or a sudden rush of warmth. Therefore, a person cannot make a decision completely rationally. Humans are ruled by feelings and instinct. They undoubtedly affect our decisions in some way.
There was also a story about a young man with a tumor. He had it surgically removed but found that he could no longer access his emotional state of mind. In that state, he could not make any decisions. Now, if decisions were made completely rationally and objectively, then this young man would have had no problem making them. However, he had trouble with even the simplest of them, such as choosing which color pen to write with.
Through listening to the clip, there was one point I inferred from all of the anecdotes; our brain makes decisions without our conscious knowledge. It was interesting to note the many different ways it did this. One way was with the differentiation it made between warm and cold. When presented with a warm object, people tended to react more positively in certain circumstances.
However, just because there are factors that affect our decisions doesn’t mean they are not our own. Everything we do is influenced by someone, something or a previous event. The way we think when we make our decisions is the same. Our judgment can be affected by temperature, color, shape, environment, words, special business tactics (especially used in propaganda and casinos) and thousands of other variables but I still believe that we have some semblance of free will, no matter how small. Even if it is a conscious or unconscious decision made beforehand by our brains, it is still our brains that is making them, and not some imaginary driving force.
After I read the article and listened to the online radio, I realized different aspects of decisions which I have never thought before. I used to think that decision is just my personal opinion, and I was surprised when I read that it is possible that my brain has already decided without my consciousness. My decision is not my decision anymore, and it becomes the outcome of my brain activities before I realize that I am thinking. However, it depends on the definition of free will: Is it only the activities of my brain? Is it my consciousness? If free will means the action of brain, and there is evidence to prove that my brain becomes active before I think, free will does not exist. To pretend that free will does imply to my consciousness and decision, it relates to everything in life that I face. The first step of decoding is to understand the literal meaning of the object. Then, I think how it can relate to myself, and affect me. I want to make a decision that I can benefit from, and this idea id true to many human beings. Before I make the decision, I assume the consequences of my decision, and my own preference. By now, I would be confused whether I am deciding or other factors are forcing me to do what I suppose to do. For instance, it talked about holding coffee in the online radio. Although Joe does not notice the difference of coffee, other people have different implication from the action of holding his coffee. People who hold hot coffee like Joe, but people who hold cold coffee don’t. In this case, Joe has no idea whether other people like him or not, and he can not decide that. Also, do the people who have different opinions toward Joe decide their opinions? Or their opinions are influenced by the reaction of their brain by relating the temperature and trust. All human beings are interacted with other people in this world, and people can not surely say that they are truly independent and isolated. I feel that my decisions are impacted by all my surroundings and how I interpret them. I can not control much when the decisions are made because they are all influenced by other factors. Even my preferences are decided by my previous experiences which were also affected. It is hard to say whether or not I am in command of my knowledge because all my knowledge comes from other places, but I am the person who gathered and organized it. At the same time, my knowledge can be threatened by other factors that are controversial to mine, so that my knowledge does not stand as true anymore. As a result, I can not surely say that I am in command of my knowledge because whether or not it is knowledge can be questionable.
ReplyDelete