Am I My Brain’s Thoughts? An exploration of how we define ourselves and what it means for Free Will.

It’s interesting how difficult it can be to go on a diet. One can be fully set on the idea, ready to eat less and watch the pounds come off, and yet still fail to avoid that second helping of dinner or the ice cream for dessert. What happens in these situations when we fail to act the way “we” want? An outside observer may label it (at a high level) a failure of willpower (and at a low level, the “diet” neural circuit being overpowered by the “hunger” one). From the inside, however, it feels a bit different – more like two selves, one which wants to diet, and another which wants to eat. Generally, we identify more strongly with the self that wants to diet. That’s our thinking self, knowledgeable about the world, and about the fact that our hunger is merely a biological sensation which it would be better to ignore. The “hunger” portion of our self feels like simply a pressure, one which might dictate the behavior of lesser animals (and infants / young children), but which we can overcome, now that we have an awareness of why we feel that way. All too often, however, we (our thinking selves) give in to that pressure, though we know we shouldn’t and don’t want to. When this happens, we often feel like we’ve lost – as if our “true” self has been bested by biological drives which are less “us”. 

This line of thinking can extend to “higher level” motivations as well. We can make such observations about ourselves as:

• We feel an allegiance to a particular sports team because we grew up in their area and bonded with others over their success
• We get along with certain people due to the manner in which their personality traits match with our own
• Our sense of normalcy is primarily dictated by the culture we grew up in
• Our thought patterns on certain topics are guided by the ideas contained in books we’ve read or conversations we’ve had
• We’re currently reflecting on the source of our motivations due to reading the preceding lines

As we make these types of observations, a similar “splitting of self” can occur as did for hunger. We again identify more strongly with our thinking self which does the analysis of why we acted or felt a particular way, rather than with the self which felt or acted in that particular way (as now that we’ve put our finger on the drivers of that feeling or action, there’s less room for “us”). To feel like a person (to have an “I”) requires a sensation of direct control, and with explanation of behavior we take away that control, making our “I” smaller and smaller.

An interesting conversation I once had with a friend may help better bring this idea to life. We were out for a walk, and after catching up, the conversation took a more analytical route (paraphrased):

Me: “It’s quite a nice day out.”

Friend: “Yes, but why did you say that? Feels like a stock phrase.”

Me: “Yes, I suppose it was, seemed like a way to fill a conversational gap. Why did you point out it being a stock phrase? Was that to show you were operating a level higher?”

Friend: “Hm, seems so. But the same could be said for your response.”

Me: “And yours there, albeit less so. Anyways, remember [shared story]?”

Friend: “Ah, I see you’re bringing up a story to change the line of conversation.”

Me: “And you’re calling that out so as to keep things a level higher.”

Friend: “Yes, seems I might be.”

At this point, we had a lull in conversation, as both of us realized that anything we said would have an explainable driver behind it – there was no escaping this circularity (even our silence was explainable). We had made our thinking selves small to the point of being non-existent; every part of us had become merely a driver. As the philosopher Daniel Dennett has pointed out, “If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything.”

Arguments against free will generally take a form like the above. It’s pointed out that everything we do is explainable, that we’re merely particles bumping into other particles, merely neurons firing, merely ideas bumping into each other in the substrate of our brains to drive action. There’s no room for “us” (at least an “original thoughts” form of us) to exist or to have any control in this deterministic world. 

But what if we broaden our sense of self? Thoughts, culture, and hunger all clearly have a level of control over the way events in the world unfold – what if we take ownership of them rather than passing the buck? It feels natural to say that we are our thoughts; less so to say we are our sensation of hunger, but more sensible that than to say “we” have no control whatsoever. We are made up of particles bumping into other particles, rather than something separate from them, and as such we do enjoy control (for these particles can influence the world). The argument against free will counters only a shadow of the real thing; while there’s no unembodied “will” hiding inside us, there’s plenty of embodied control over the world.

Said slightly differently: is there any difference between my brain’s thoughts and my own? To me (and to my brain), those appear one and the same, and through those thoughts I’m free to take action in the world as I will.