There have been brain experiments that suggest you make your decisions before your brain consciously articulates the decisions and reasons for them.
I’ve known people who I’m pretty confident make up reasons for their choices after the fact. But are they really lying if they believe what they’re saying?
The question is, am I any different than them? When I think about the reasons I made past choices, how can I be sure I’m not just making up shit now?
No, I’m not high. I haven’t had drugs in almost a week.
I know this is a hard pill to swallow for most people, but our conscious thoughts are not necessarily “ourselves”, even though they often get framed as such. We are the whole, the uncountable unconscious small machinations, as well as the big thoughts.
As somebody else mentioned: Reacting first and thinking about it later was most often advantageous for our ancestors. “Flee from the lion first and think about that was necessary later.”
But that does not mean that the process of arriving at the point of “Flee from the lion” isn’t individual and very much “ours”. It’s just the fastest part of our brain taking the lead and everything else following.
The most succinct summation of this I’ve seen is a turn of phrase once again lifted from Daniel Rutter:
You are not your brain. You are something that your brain does.