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it is this feeling that my conscious
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experience is this self that is somehow
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living somewhere inside my body it's my
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body it's my brain if your memories
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weren't strung together there'd be much
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less of a sense of a self Free Will for
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the most part is an illusion it's not
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free in the way we feel it is there's no
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self or free will making decisions
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behind the scenes
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so I think that Free Will for the most
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part is an illusion so I use the term
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free will to talk about decision-making
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processes in nature if you look at
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something like a p tendril when it
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senses that it's close to a branch that
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it can wrap itself around it starts
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growing more quickly in that direction
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and then it changes the growth so that
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it wraps itself around a branch most of
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us wouldn't consider that to be a free
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decision-making process it's a cause and
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effect process that occurs in nature and
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as you move up in complexity to the
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level of brains and then human brains
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the number of factors that come into
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play are so expansive that it would be
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impossible for us to track them all but
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it is a process it's a process by which
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the brain is interacting with the
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exterior World measuring the different
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outcomes of the different possible
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future FES and then ultimately making a
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decision this is something that I think
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what many people mean by free will the
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problem with having
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free in the title is that it's not free
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in the way we feel it is and this is
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where the illusion comes in we begin
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with this illusion of self of being this
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solid concrete entity that is somehow
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living somewhere inside my body it's my
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body it's my brain and therefore somehow
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separate from the physical world that
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could somehow freely make a decision and
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because everything we experience
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everything we know takes place within
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this felt experience of Consciousness we
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often equate this feeling of self with
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Consciousness and that I think is
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clearly an illusion it is this feeling
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that my conscious experience is this
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self it is the thing that has this
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freedom and this is how the illusion of
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self and the illusion of Free Will are
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related there was a very interesting
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study done in 2013 in which they put
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participants in an fmri machine and
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showed them a screen and presented two
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numbers on that screen and they gave
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them the option of either adding or
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subtracting these two numbers and they
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were scanning the activity of these
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participants brains while they were
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doing this calculation
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and the result of this study was that
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the experimenters could tell up to 4
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seconds not only when this person was
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going to make the decision but whether
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they decided to add or subtract and so
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you get this sense viscerally that
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there's no self or free will making
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decisions behind the scenes but that in
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terms of your conscious experience a
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decision really arises
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so when I talk about the illusion of
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self this is often very hard for people
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to grasp what that could even mean we
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all understand that a wave is not a
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static thing in nature it's a process
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and our brains are very much the same
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thing they are processes in nature that
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are Ever Changing ever evolving that we
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are in constant communication with the
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external world so the Neuroscience is
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really still in its infancy but we're
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starting to learn more and more about
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how this illusion of self gets created
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we also know that memory plays a role in
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creating this experience of self as well
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there's a sense in which all of the
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memories that we have access to over
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time were being experienced by the same
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subject and you can imagine if your
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memories weren't strung together and
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your experience was just of each present
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moment there' be much less of a sense of
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a self moving through time we're also
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learning a little bit more about what
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neuroscientists refer to as the default
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mode Network so we know that when the
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default mode network is active we are
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highly aware of this illusion of self
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and it tends to quiet down when we're
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experiencing what people talk about as a
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flow state so when we're very immersed
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in our work if we're very immersed in a
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sport when people are under the
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influence of some psychedelic substances
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or various meditation techniques that it
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down the default mode Network we're not
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so aware of self versus other or self
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versus World which is actually closer to
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the underlying reality there are moments
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where realizing there's an experience of
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conscious will taking place can be quite
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liberating many people get stuck in
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feeling responsible for their
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psychological State and there's a way in
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which simp
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being with whatever uncomfortable
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emotions you're experiencing whether
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it's sadness or frustration or anger
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being with them rather than believing
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that you controlling them um can be
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extremely beneficial for psychological
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well-being
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