u/Critical-Hope1460

Hi. I've seen countless critiques about the notion of free will, like from the theoretical determinism that rules the universe, but one peculiar empirical aspect that could be interpreted as biological evidence is how we choose to behave. I'd like to see what you believe.

I realized this recently: I'm an ADHD individual who uses meds to hyperfocus on things. However, whenever I'm hyper-focused on something stimulating that I now find detrimental, I've realized that my new self will be convinced that what I'm doing is good. This is weird.

No matter how much I try to assure myself prior to the stimulus that I should follow a strict way of reasoning, my memories will interpret the world and memories in a way that the behavior I'm following is accepted. If you ask me, while my mind is poisoned, why I changed my point of seeing things, I'd probably tell you something that my sober self right now would find unacceptable, but that addicted self would find it reasonable, as it receives a stream of thoughts and memories that justifies it. So, if the source of our memories and thoughts is fallible, perhaps we don't actually have conscious control of what we decide to do? Again, we would be just reacting to that faulty subconsciousness. Everything you do is based on what you think and remember, and if not, then it's often referred to as unconscious acts, which is an ironic term, and I feel that entails a darker conclusion about free will.

This, perhaps, is just my extreme case, but we can identify ourselves to some degree with the idea that based on the activities or stimuli consumed, our brain filters our way of thinking. Compare the thoughts and beliefs you hold when you are angry, depressed, or happy. You will realize you don't actually decide how to behave at all. If someone urges to become aware of yourself, "Don't let your feelings control you", then you wouldn't start thinking by yourself per se, but your unconcious brain will realize how wrong he was, and start mediating this new incident (the person who urged you to become self-aware) with the memory of you and others being angry, and then you will adopt a new way of behaving based on those incoming thoughts

That means that we aren't actually deciding what we think, but just reacting to the stimuli our brain submits to us.

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u/Critical-Hope1460 — 16 days ago