When toddlers are playing together and we watch them, they just continue with what they are doing.
Not until they realize their parents are watching them do they change. That is what happens when
outcomes are presented to our awareness screen. At lightning speed, stimuli produced at the instant
of awareness are sent back, processed, and without realizing any of this we suddenly change our
behaviour and believe it is the result of what we want to do, while in fact it is the manifestation
of the outcome of the brain process. Outcomes that reach the awareness threshold appear on our
awareness screen and it seems we are making a conscious choice while in fact we observe the brain
in action by the appearance of outcomes of its processes without realizing the brain process took
place. Nothing changes because, either way, we do what we do and don’t do what we do not do. Why
then, is it of any importance to know why we do what we do? I believe that understanding and
accepting this will help us to gradually become more aware of influences that affect our behaviour.
In that sense, behaviour is the result of process rather than choice. Commercials are based on
this, election campaigns use it, and people use it every day. Many atrocities have happened because
of stimuli that have been processed by the brain, in the procirclistic manner, and produced
outcomes, sometimes painful ones.
Approaching this from the point of view that all behaviours are just a matter of choice and we
could have made a different choice if we had wanted to, ignores the evidence that our decisions are
not a matter of choice when we defend them by providing reasons for what we did. It also ignores
the fact that influential factors such as violent video games, online radicalization, validating a
young child, demonstrating respect and integrity, honesty, gossip, bullying, abuse and neglect, and
the daily stream of news that reaches our brain affect our behaviour. For some it may be less and
for others more.