As you may notice im new here and truth be told im new to philosophy. I know next to nothing about philosophy except what I will randomly think about. Basically I have a thought that I would like people to pick holes in. By the way I am by no means saying this is correct.
When someone makes a decision, whether important or unimportant, they draw on all past experiences in there life (held by the subconscious mind). Every smell, sound, memory, experience is recorded by your subconscious and when faced with an option/choice you will do what your mind works out based on its stored knowledge. If this is correct is it possible that we can’t really make choices.
Say I ask you to raise either your right or left hand. You have a choice to make, right or left. Your mind will in a tiny tiny moment “scan” all your past experiences that either relate or may impact on your decision. Say for example you saw a man raise his left hand before getting hit by a car when you were young (stupid example I know but you get the idea), your subconscious mind may use this (as well as other experiences) to make you raise you right hand.
But you say “ah ha!” I was going to raise my right hand but im going to ignore my natural impulse and raise my left to prove I have the decisive power. But something in your mind (subconscious past experience) will make you think to do that. Your decision to do that is still made subconsciously.
When people are born (maybe conceived) they have no past experience. They come into the world like a dry sponge because their minds are empty ready to be filled with experience. As things happen (outside the babies control) they store it away and create a subconscious mind to base their decisions and life on.
Now if this had any truth to it, then wouldn’t it mean that our lives are some sort of destiny or single path we cannot change?
Thats what im trying to say, but that guy makes it much easier to understand.
If that is the case though, and his behaviour is determined by factors ouride his control, then isn’t he on a set path through life? His life is not under his control?
Thanks for the post Matis - it was pretty insightful, especially for someone who is new to philosophy.
B.F. Skinner was an interesting guy, but some of his ideas are pretty controversial.
The cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker wrote a book called The Blank Slate that refutes the idea of a child being born with “empty minds ready to be filled” - and does a pretty good job of it. With the information that we’ve acquired through the study of genetics and the study of twins who are separated at birth, we can say that an awful lot of who you are now is simply due to your genetic makeup.
This is also Carl Jung’s Collective Subconscious- He uses the term to define a pre-existing part of the human mind that is the same in all humans (but can reveal itself in different forms or archetypes) that affects our individual thought process.
As far as the OP - choice is a relative term. Decision making is process by which a number of inputs are processed to produce a single output. In that sense, an output will always be a result of its inputs (a tautology). So does that lead to determinism? I think of determinism as something objective, outside of our own mind and body making our decision. The inputs used for our decision making are in our brain, and got there through subjective observation and reasoning and are unique to each of us. So even if the decision making process is set, the inputs are our own, and therefore so is the output. That may mean that it does not fit my definition of determinism. That does not mean it fits you definition of choice, but if choice means a lack of determinism, then I would say yes, we do have choice