Our Bodies Are Autonomous Vehicles; Our Consciousness Is Just Along For The Ride

Research in cognitive psychology has shown that even before a human is consciously aware of making a decision, their body has already arrived at a decision, in the form of certain patterns of neuron firing.

This idea brought me back to the old philosophical theory concerning the Evil Demon argument, which basically goes like this: While we cannot prove that that there isn't some "evil demon" figure manipulating our every thought and action, we cannot disprove the idea either. Even when given the principle, "I think, therefore I am", we can still consider the possibility that some evil demon figure is tricking us into believing that we are indeed in control of ou own actions and consciousness, even if these things are actually being controlled by some outside, intangible force.

Basically, here is my idea, as it was stated in the title: Our bodies are autonomous vehicles, and our consciousness is just along for the ride. If you don't get it, here's a clever metaphor that will be easier for you to understand: Pretend that our bodies are like a train, or a bus, and our consciousness is just a passenger riding in that train or bus. We jump on this train thinking that it's working for us by taking us to a place we need to go, but in reality, the train's trajectory and direction are already pre-determined, and we are just along for the ride. We have no way to influence the direction of the train, hence, we are just along for the ride.

If the patterns of neuron fire have already made a decision for decisive action before we are even consciously aware of it, then what is choice? What is control, if the decision has already been made? Could our bodies be manipulating our thoughts by convincing our consciousness that the decisions it makes are those of our consciousness, thereby providing us with the illusion of free will and the ability to make our own decisions?

If this is the case, then our true self lies in our consciousness, and our bodies are the evil demon figures guiding our consciousness in the direction that it sees fit.

Just something for you to think about :)

-nesqu!k