The Gate

However - there are times when thought appears to be self-directed. Such as when I make plans in advance. For instance:
"The floor is dirty, I should clean it"
"I need to be at the station at six"
"I will eat my dinner first"
"I will meet Adam at seven for a coffee"
"Today I will buy a coffee at Starbuck's" etc...

These thoughts may be useful, but are they self- directed? Do you control whether they happen or not?

Yes I would say that I can catch a thought in the middle, thats if I become aware of it before it runs its course.

Do you control whether or not you become aware of the thought?

Do I control apparently self-directed thought?
I suppose that I don't control whether they happen or not. I don't plan an exact time they arise.
Thats a bit of a grey area in my understanding.

To take my first thought example (dirty floor). In my experience, the thought would arise in the following way..

1) Walk into kitchen
2) Look around kitchen
3) Look at floor
4) See crumbs
5) Think 'The floor is dirty I should clean it'

So the thought and its content is a reaction to another sense perception. In that sense I don't control its arsing.
Is this a fair assessment?

Do I control whether I become aware of a thought?
I would say no. There is no controller who dictates whether I should become aware of a thought midway through a thought. Awareness of the thought just happens. Spontaneously.

Is there a thinker of thoughts, or do thoughts just happen?

There is no thinker of thoughts.
Thoughts just happen by themselves.

If there's no thinker of thoughts, what about a hearer of sounds?
A seer of sights?
A feeler of sensations, a smeller of smells, or a taster of tastes?

If I relax into my experience of seeing, seeing is just happening. The visual field is experienced as open and impersonal. Seeing is just happening by itself. Only after does thought claim the seeing.

Likewise hearing is just happening by itself. There is just sound, no hearer. Thought claims the hearing as 'bird', 'car', etc.

I find the others are trickier to investigate, but there's no perceiver behind them - they just are.

What moves your body?

Put one of your hands out in front of you. Hold it steady for a while, then raise it.

Did you decide exactly when to move your arm?

No, I didn't decide exactly when to raise my arm. There was no ''...wait ...wait ...NOW'' thought. My arm hovered for a bit in air and then I just raised my arm!

Walk around a little.

Do you think about or decide how to take every step?

No, I don't think about every step, or decide how to take it. I seem to be running on auto pilot.

There's an itch. It gets scratched.
The room is dark. I reach for the lightswitch.
Stomach rumbles. I move to the fridge.
Even writing this. My fingers just find to the keys. Nothing telling me where the next key is located on the keyboard.

I think that a lot of my action is habitual and/or a reflexive reaction to something else.

I think that a lot of my action is habitual and/or a reflexive reaction to something else.

Do you see this clearly? Over the next day or so, please pay attention to your actions as you go through the day. Do you control your breathing? Are you even aware of it most of the time? How many routine actions such as going to/ from work or anywhere else you go on a regular basis are on "autopilot"? Do you plan what you're going to say ahead of time most of the time, or does it just come out the way it does? Let me know what you notice about this.

ES

Yeah, its a bit spooky actually. I will spend today watching this and report back.

Hi ES.

I have been chcking this out and I can confirm that the vast majority of my actions are performed on auto pilot.

Actions such as taking a sip of water from a glass, moving my body position, driving to work, performing my work duties, looking at my watch, etc are just habitual. I can pretty much drive the whole 24 miles to work and back on auto pilot. I caught myself after I had hoovered the whole living room floor yesterday - I hadn't planned or even thought about hoovering until after I put the hoover away - I just did it, I did it out of habit!

Other actions such as braking the car, returning a greeting, turning when my name is called, etc are responses to whats going on in the environment - I suppose they are conditioned habits too.

My job requires me to speak with customers face to face - and the vast majority of interation is also habitual greetings such as "how are you?", "have you got any holiday planned?", "the weather is lovely today", etc. I don't plan these phrases in advance - they come out by themself.

With regards to your breathing questions - I definately do not control my breathing, nor am I aware of it most of the time - the body is just breathing/regulating itself. I'm not sure I would live long if I had to control my own breathing!

Now - I said that the vast majority of my actions are habitual - I see this clearly - but this is where I get confused. There are certain times when it appears that forethought or planning is necessary - times I can't operate on auto pilot, such as planning a journey/route to a new place, or planning how I am going to interact/behave toward a customer (who I know beforehand is going to be aggressive or irate for whatever reason).

It feels that these kind of actions are calculated beforehand - I can't drive to a new location from habit. I can drive the car by habit but I need to think about the route - before and whilst driving there.

Does that make sense - or am I over thinking this?

Cheers
A

I think it's time to look at decision making.

Put two objects in front of you, say a pen and a pencil. Pick one of them up. Try to observe the exact moment when you decide on one or the other. How did the decision get made?

Okay, I used a couple of coloured paperclips. Then tried it with five different coloured paper clips lined up on a table. These are my observations:

As I see the paperclips lined up, thoughts arise that labels "red", "blue" or whatever colour they are.

There is a sense of anticipation. Something is going to happen. A decision is going to be made.

As I wait in anticipation of making the choice, it sometimes feels like talk-thought is influencing my decision. For example, surveying the paperclips a thought jumps in from no-where that goes something like "the black one".

There are other times when these talk-thoughts are not present. At these times the decision feels spontaneous.

I also experimented with deliberately distracting myself for a few seconds - perhaps looking at the walls of the room - then making a 'quick-fire' decision and quickly picking one. During these times there was no influencing thought - it felt completely random.

From the experiement I can draw the following conclusions:

1) Decision making can be influenced by thought - although we discovered previously that thoughts are not self-directed, they just happen by themselves and there is no thinker behind thought.

2) At the point of making a decision. it feels spontaneous, random, and for lack of a better word, empty.

3) There is no decision-making function/faculty that I can observe, i.e. nothing that announces "I am the decision-maker".