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I think I wrote about this briefly before, but, according to an article in the New York Times, “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don't”, we are like machines in that most of what we think to be conscious decisions are unconscious. According to the article the conscious brain only plays catch-up to what the unconscious brain has already done. The decision to act is an illusion that you make about something that your unconscious has decided.

In some ways I believe humans are very ignorant about what goes on in the body and in the mind. We really don’t know how and why we decide to do things. Granted the conscious mind can give logical reasons for doing things but why does one “choose” to do that action? If it isn’t our decision then how does our unconscious decide what to do?

At a children’s fair, a clown approached a little boy and blew on a flat balloon and then presented the balloon to the child. The child looked at the clown blankly and the clown repeated his action. The child still did not understand so the clown approached me with the same act. I blew on the balloon and it became inflated. I had no idea when and why I made the decision to blow on the balloon. Why did my unconscious mind decide that I should blow on the balloon? Why did the unconscious mind of the boy react the same way?