WHO ARE YOU? – Orval’s Sermon on July 15, 2012 at UUCSP

Who Are You??? I’m not asking for your name, like a police officer, or what you put on a business card. No, I’m asking like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. Who? – are? - you??? Yogananda, in his “Autobiography of a Yogi,” says “Who Are You?” is THE best question upon which to meditate.

What is the nature of Consciousness? How do you make decisions? Do you have free will? THE most discussed topic in philosophy throughout history and now is free will. Today I will add my own perspective on the ancient questions of consciousness and free will and relate some of the latest answers from science.

Our intuitive ideas of who we are may be wrong, just as our idea that the sun revolved around the earth was proven wrong. Most people believe in dualism; they think the mind and the body exist separately. People say “I HAVE a brain” and “I HAVE a body.” And, my personal favorite: “I changed my mind.” Who is the “I” that has a mind, that it can change? As if this “I” is something other than our mind. Who are you? “We are spirits in a material world” says the song by Sting. However, science has discredited the theory of dualism. We now know that if you damage parts of the brain, there are specific effects: there is no memory, self-control or decision-making. In other words, no brain, no you. If you stick a fork in it, you are done. Think of mind & brain like layers of computer hardware and software. Hardware is useless without software and software is useless without hardware. The mind is what the brain does.

To answer the questions of free will and consciousness, I turn to biological research: 1) Consciousness, a sense of self, arises from an organism’s interactions with its surroundings. And 2) Free will arises from an organism’s attempts to survive in a prey-predator environment. What I like about this approach is that it provides a unified theory to explain humans and animals. And it grounds free will and responsibility in physical survival, not in some abstract moral plane.

Organisms, including human beings, have to know which portion of the incoming sensory stream results from its’ own actions and which does not. When you move your head, the world appears to stay still. You can’t tickle yourself because you know you are touching your stomach and therefore you are in control. We are not robots responding predictably to external stimuli. All organisms that survive must be unpredictable for competitors, prey or predators, as well as able to explore hidden resources. Recent evidence indicates that one common ability of brains is to choose among different behavioral options even in the absence of differences in the environment and to perform genuinely novel acts. For instance, isolated leech neurons subjected to identical electrical stimuli generates either a swimming motor program or a crawling motor program. What these variable results tell us is that the animal behaves as it damned well pleases, sometimes swimming and sometimes crawling, in an unpredictable way.

Animals and humans constantly ask: What happens if I do this? The experience of willing yourself to do something and then successfully doing it is how you develop a sense of self and that you are in control. The concept of self necessarily follows from the insight that animals and humans initiate behavior by themselves. Agency is assigned to entities who initiate actions themselves. Thus, agency is crucial for moral responsibility. Behavior can have good or bad consequences. The law of the jungle is “eat or be eaten;” an animal is responsible for its own survival. It is the agent for whom the consequences matter the most and who can be held responsible for them. This is one scientific model of consciousness and free will.

Who - are - you? The Buddhists figured this out a long time ago, in what is now called “the bundle theory of the self.” This theory holds that you are a collection of traits and characteristics held together by the bundle of your body.

Everyone knows about right brains and left brains. Well, science now speaks of many modules within the brain that are specialized functions or capacities which all run simultaneously, mostly subconsciously. You hear me, see me, feel the seat under yourself, pump your heart, and digest your food, all at the same time. Our brains, then, are like a tool box, with many tools available, many ``small minds'' that simultaneously process feelings, fantasies, ideas, fixed routines, interpersonal responses and bodily skills.

Around 1960, researchers found that some people suffering from severe epileptic seizures could be cured by surgically severing the connections between the right half and the left half of the brain. Science has discovered that the optic nerve from the right eye goes to the left brain, and the optic nerve from the left eye goes to the right brain. In a normal, undivided brain, this information is subsequently shared between halves of the brain. A patient who had the divided brain surgery was shown a picture just to his right eye, which is connected to the left brain, where the speech module is located. The patient said he saw a picture of a chicken, and picked a chicken claw to match it. Then the patient was shown a picture of a snowy winter scene just to his left eye. He said he saw nothing, but he could correctly point to other related pictures, and picked a snow shovel. He was asked why he picked pictures of a chicken claw and a shovel. The patient answered: “Oh, the chicken coop is messy and I need the shovel to clean it out.” Instead of saying “I don’t know,” we just make up a plausible story.

This was the first experiment to demonstrate the existence of an Interpreter module or function in our brains. Whatever we do, the interpreter makes sense of it. The Self is a sort of public relations agent, a spokesperson but not a boss.

I used to object when people said “part of me wants to go out, and part of me wants to stay home.” I thought that was ridiculous because there was only one person. Now I’ve learned we are composed of parts, and part of us really does want to go out while another part of us wants to stay home.

Here is a fun fact: We don’t know where thoughts come from! Seriously, researchers don’t have a clue. Thoughts just seem to bubble up from the subconscious and appear to consciousness. Much of our behavior is not governed by our conscious mind – which is prone to claim credit – but by a cauldron of motives, drives and unconscious propensities of which we are largely oblivious. Indeed, most of our actions are carried out by the unconscious minds.

Scientific experiments using brain scans have proven that we unconsciously make choices before we are consciously aware that we have decided. Most neuroscientists today argue free will is an illusion. Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author, says: “How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.”

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink!, says: “[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act is a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.”

I think the neuroscientists have misread the experimental evidence. These experiments do make us question how we make decisions. We must admit that our decisions are mostly made intuitively, not through a conscious, rational process. The decider here is not the conscious “You” that you think is yourself. But I argue that the decider is all of you, including your mostly subconscious processes. Making those decisions depends upon all of yourself, not just your biological reflexes, but also your culture and your upbringing. You are not out of the loop; you are the loop.

Furthermore, there are destructive implications if people believe they are not responsible for their actions. Experiments show rates of cheating are much lower when subjects read prompts about being free and responsible. Ideas have consequences. Society is bound by a glue of trust. Cheating corrodes healthy society. Taking responsibility for our actions is vital to a healthy society.

Unitarian Universalists promote the principle of “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” So our shared faith declares that we have free will and are responsible agents.

As for me, I believe that I should take responsibility for my life, and avoid the victim role, however tempting that appears. But what if take too much responsibility? I worry about my kids; was I a bad parent? I cannot go back in time and redo my past choices. But boy, do I want to! I kick myself a lot for things I’ve done. I should have closed my business when it started losing money, instead of taking out that home mortgage and losing my business and my house. Woulda, coulda, shoulda; what a pathetic litany. What I’ve learned is you have to adopt a new story, such as “you were under stress then and you did what you thought was best at the time.”

In free will, the will is the hard part. Millions of people are trying to lose weight. According to experts, the starting point is to make a commitment to a specific goal and a plan. This way, when part of you wants to eat too much, you can summon another part to overrule, and remind yourself of your commitment.

Positive reinforcement is the most effective way to change behaviors. That is the basis for the success of Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous; the group regularly gives you rewards for good behavior. It is hard to change your habits, but after time the new habits get easier, and your new story takes over.

As I see it, a satisfying moral universe is one in which I am responsible for my actions and their consequences, while knowing and accepting the limits of my power. The “Serenity Prayer” asks for:

·      the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

·      courage to change the things I can, and

·      The wisdom to know the difference.

I choose actions from my perceived options. What is fascinating is that some people perceive options that others do not. Statistics and common sense say if one is raised in poverty, he or she is much more likely to not finish high school and then remain in poverty. But how can we explain the exceptions? Some people overcome poverty, study hard and succeed. Why? Siblings, even twins, can make different choices and experience very different outcomes. This is proof that our lives are not determined, that we have free will.

So, given that you have free will and are responsible for your life, how then will you live?