Dear ToeQuestors.

[austintorn@aol.com]

FREE WILL

Do you control your thoughts or do they control you?
Could you, silly as it seems,
Just be falling, hook and line, for your thoughts?
Think about it—thoughts may tell you the answer!

The brain’s decisions are determined by
Memories, associations, and
Learned behaviors right up to the instant;
So—our decisions are predetermined.

The “free” in free will has no real meaning,
Unless we take it to mean random, that
One’s will depends on nothing but dice rolls;
What good would such a brain be anyway?

Can you start or stop your thoughts? In other words,
Can you will that which does the willing? Try it.
Oops, a surprise thought just came from the blue;
You did not will it—the will is unfree!

A mind is perhaps many little minds,
Each a simpleton awaiting control,
Such as when we eat, socialize, or fight,
None of them very complex at all.

The brain, with its hundred billion nerve cells,
Does all of our decision-analysis,
Only making its results known, at the last,
To the brain’s highest level: consciousness.

People act, robot-like, since they know not
The why of what they do, for decisions
Are made blind, by brain networks, just before
They’re presented to us in consciousness.

Consciousness comes three hundred milliseconds
After the brain does its analysis,
And, thus, has but last-second veto power,
If any, over what the brain comes up with.

Decisions are not made by consciousness,
Although, this fine picture in the mind’s ‘I’,
Merely the brain’s perception of itself,
Is fed back whole for future shortcutting.

Not much of what the brain does reaches
Consciousness, and even when it does,
The mind’s last to know, being like a tourist—
For decisions precede their awareness.

First-level people have beliefs and desires,
But second-level people can have beliefs
And desires about their beliefs and desires,
Becoming able spectators of themselves.

Although our decisions of the instant are
Fully determined, and are therefore not free,
We may happen to learn something new—and make
Choices tomorrow we wouldn’t make today.

Thoughts good and bad come and go, as the brain
Looks at itself without assigning values.
Still, lucky that others can’t read our minds,
’Though forbidden thoughts are normal and sane.

If you try hard not to think of something,
Then you will just think of it all the more
So, if told to avoid impure thoughts, you’ll
Think of people naked beneath their clothes!

We may fall for our thoughts, hook, line, and sinker:
Conditioned responses, reflexes, or
Overwhelming emotions, spurious,
Or ancient, planted by evolution.

When extreme thoughts arrive, uninvited, as
Most thoughts do, we veto them, saying “don’t”,
For while we can never will that which does
The unconscious willing, we have some “free won’t”.

We’re all robots, but no one notices
Since there are so many different kinds,
Which, though making life quite interesting,
Obscures the fact that the will is unfree.

[melanie]

Dear ToeQuestors:

The lad/y reading this
is beautiful, classy and
strong, and I love he/r.
Help he/r live he/r
life to the fullest.
Please promote he/r and
cause her to excel above
he/r expectations.
Help he/r shine in the
darkest places where it is
impossible to love.
Protect he/r at all times,
lift he/r up when
s/he needs You the most,
and let he/r know when s/he
walks with You,
S/he will always be safe..