Free will: who's in control?

L’auto-exploration commence par des choses simples pour devenir progressivement plus dure. Au début, nous constatons que nous ne contrôlons pas le monde extérieur à nous. Je ne décide pas quand il pleut. Puis nous comprenons que nous ne sommes pas maîtres de ce qui se passe dans notre corps. Je ne domine pas ma tension. Puis nous nous apercevons qu

This, then, is the key sleight-of-hand at the heart of our psychosocial problems: We pretend we’re in charge, both to others and even to ourselves, but we’re less in charge than we think. We pose as privileged insiders, when in fact we’re often making the same kind of educated guesses that any informed outsider could make. We claim to know our own

That’s consciousness. You have a model of yourself. Where do you get this model? You look at yourself as if you are a part of the environment . . . I have a blueprint of myself, so at that level of a blueprint I can modify things. I can look at myself in the mirror and say, “Hmm, if I tweak this model I’m going to perform differently.” That is what

The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it.

conscious creatures really can control their own destiny by selecting the future that is consistent with their long-term goals from a menu of possible options.