Free Will and The Subconscious...

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Let us suppose there was a way to differentiate if an idea was from the subconscious,
or from some other place?

Because lets be realistic here.
If my whole life was just an unravelling of my pre-programmed subconscious, then what the hell was I thinking?

Ok. I consciously think: "I know it's going to be hotter that Hades today so I think I'll have a ice cream cone." Conscious decision or unconscious?

Driving down the street I see a Dairy Queen and think: "I think I'll have an ice cream cone." Conscious or unconscious?

I'm sitting in a chair and the urge pops up to have an ice cream cone. Conscious or unconscious?

How do you know? In the first instance you observed facts and applied learning, and most importantly "desire."

The desire factor is a combination of all the ice cream you've eaten and either enjoyed or rejected. This factor was added to your sub consciousness by experience and conscious thought. You may have even thought your action through before committing them to storage. And when I say "storage" I mean a special type of storage attached to "action" and "memory."

"If my whole life was just an unravelling of my pre-programmed subconscious, then what the hell was I thinking?"

Those who believe ultimate free will is impossible believe that because of factors such as your chromosomes, your religion and where you were born (and raised) will have a lasting effect on your life such that you are not "ultimately" in control of your life path. And this (ultimately) may be true but it does not take away your ability to change your life and your life path as you see fit. The more you use your brain the less "automatic" decision making there will be.

Taking free will to a neurological (and probalby spiritual too ) lenght , free will is when you have a choice to make new paths in your brain...as raw as that sounds. That is free will , the free will to do what you want with your self to you charecter.

you have 2 natures in you , the nature that wants to eat chocolate and the nature that knows that eating a banana would be bether....
if you chose one of them you make a path on the brain that makes it easyest to do the other time you want to do it.
You have free will in that.

But you dont have free will to decide what happens to the world in the laws of phisics our other.
(but thats not realy the defenation of free will aniway so XD)

It's just as you say Danixia. YOU are free to choose what you put in your head/mind.

Unfortunately you may have an upbringing or life history that tends to make you

"less reflective." You may have grown up in a family or situation where thoughts

of caring for others was considered silly and weak and taking advantage of others

was praised. This could be true in a typically criminal way or in a family committed

to family or personal wealth and gain above all others.

So I'm not saying everyone will want to use such improvement methods, but they're
available to all. You choose.

Yeah zenden true
and like you said earlier when you grow up and you start to see that there is an other way , then if you want- again free will- you can change it

I don't think it's a conscious choice whether you want to be consciously aware all of the processes leading up to your choice. We just aren't, proved by studies with neuroimaging which show that as far as some choices go, your brain chooses something up to 6 seconds before you're even aware of the choice you made. There's the illusion of free will and that's how we take ownership of our choices when we're finally consciously aware of them.

That being said, I still haven't made up my mind if I think that some choices don't involve partial free will, we can certainly think our way through some options and choose whichever we feel is the best outcome, but I just can't help but wonder if the processes that probably went on in my subconscious during those moments affected that outcome as well, which I think they do.

Hi SilverProteus.

First I'd like to make something 100% clear:

YOU are a combination of consciousness, unconscious, ID (?) and anything else (including the kitchen sink)

is YOU. It's all you; there is no separate person inside your body. So to me the idea of a separate force or

personality makes no sense.

Certainly your conscious mind can not recall every instance in your life pertaining to a subject (say before you

choose to drop a coin in a vending machine) but the information is there and your subconscious storage memory will

access those memories, and based on your previous experience and thoughts and offer up an answer. This is unconscious

in the sense that you've (through previous experience and thought) pre-planned your action up to the present moment

and don't need to re-think the entire trivial situation through again, however you CAN choose to do so.

Frankly the idea of thought without control sounds suspiciously like alcoholics who (conveniently) forget what happened

the night before.

And as I mentioned elsewhere: The testing you mention is, I believe, just more evidence of your memory retaining previous

experiences AND your thoughts at the time concerning these experiences. Your "unconscious mind" is a memory and processing

system and you and your mind and environment fill it with information to be used at a later date.

Free Will is one of those topics that can be interesting, philosophically, neurologically and psychologically.
But it's also a bit of a crock.

What factors affect will?

Ability and Disability
Neurological proclivities (inc. personality types, self-awareness, reactive aspects, chemical aspects etc)
Experience
Cultural pressures (inc. family, social, workplace, laws and other limits on choice, environmental and expectations)
Habit (including depth of habit, addictions, formative habits, unconscious habits etc)
Choice (made easier or more difficult by all of the above)

As for any spiritual aspects, I believe that's more about what you choose to believe than an actual external agent.

Great post.

Remember to make allowance for your earliest memories, which are buried the deepest (and deeper still: instincts) and you've got most of the most important "memories" we use every moment. Pretty awesome.

Excellent addition.

I add it because I believe it's the deepest memories we seldom or never think of that sometimes may produce unexpected outburst of anger or unexplainable behavior that

make us think "That's not me" or leave us wondering and thinking "It's that unpredictable subconscious again" rather than realize it's all "you."

I think it's important to know what drives us and how to take control. Call it free will if you wish.