Annaka Harris

If we could see all of the factors leading up to the moment where I chose water or where I ran screaming from the room, we could, in fact, see that there was no other behavior I was going to or could have exhibited.

in that moment in the same way that when the P tendril hits the branch, it starts coiling.

Well, and I should also, I mean, this brings up another point, which is that there is a difference between voluntary and involuntary behavior.

So of course we have reflexes and it is a different, there's different brain processing in action

When I make a decision about water or tea, then there is, you know, if my behavior is forced from the outside or if I have a brain tumor that's causing me to make certain decisions or feel certain feelings.

And so...

The point is, at bottom, it's all brain processing and behavior.

But the reason why certain actions feel willed, there's a good reason why it feels that way.

And it's to distinguish our own self-generated behavior based on thinking and possibly weighing the different results of different things.

I already had caffeine today.

I don't want more.

There are all these...

processes, things that we can point to and things that we can't, things I'm affected by at a subconscious level.

And that is very different from an unwilled action or a reflex or something like that.

And so some people I can imagine, I haven't used the P tendril example, but I can imagine they wouldn't like that because the P tendril

sounds more to them like a reflex, and that doesn't address the question of a much more complex decision-making process.

But I think at bottom, that is what it is.

And that's really where the illusion of free will and the illusion of self, which I think is they're kind of two sides of the same coin, come from.

So even when we intellectually understand that everything we're feeling, everything we're doing is based on our brain,

processing and brain behavior.