Experiment no. 3

EXPERIMENT No. 3 ~ SUB ROUTINES
PART I

Ok before we do the main experiments just stand up (or crouch down if your standing) and then return to your original position. This has only got to be quick.


Go on do it before you read any further....

Ok this first one you might be a bit annoyed with but hang in there. Did you just decide to do the action then? Did you choose to stand up/ sit down? Wrong. Would you have done it if you had not seen the message on the screen to do so?
Seriously think about this. Was there any benefit to you doing this? The brain thinks there is benefit to be obtained so it does the resulting action.

The benefit being furthering your understanding. The idea to do this came from the message here on the screen. Would it have happened otherwise?

Now next, to the lazy ones, did you decide not to do it? Maybe your chuckling thinking you chose. But did you or did you not witness a thought arising signalling that it would be of no benefit in any capacity? Even if it was literally the thought "f**k that" arising. It is still a signal. Where was the thinker? At what point did you conciously have both options in front of you for you to consider, to make a choice?

Think about this one, where was the thinker here? Did a thought just arise on its own?

Now we have to do some experiments that involve movements of the body. Do you have a cup of tea or coffee? You may want to get a drink here. All I want you to do is consume the drink at your own leisure through these next experiments, all will be revealed at the end.
Anyway on to the main experiments.

PART II
Ok for this experiment I'm going to need you to take a walk. Only a short one. Just walk around the room a few times, you need to be able to walk back and forth or in a continuous circle but I want you to notice what part the thinker plays in walking around the room. Just notice how much control you have over walking. Just go and take a minute to do this and then come back.What did you notice?

Well for me as I have already seen that I don't exist, I noticed that my body just moved for me anyway. It was just down to motor function.
Did you have to think about each step that you took?
Did your attention wander on to thought as you were walking?
Did this impair your walking in anyway?
My answers were:
No
Yes
No

Ok, so we can now draw the following conclusions. We call these motor skills or muscle memory because it is an inbuilt programmed response that the body has. We can see its beyond concious control because we were not focussing on the task the whole time. Have you ever walked home and not remembered the walk? This is because this faculty is an automated response of the body. Therefore awareness switches to the internal dialogue because its deemed to be more important than the task of walking itself?

Don't forget walking is very complex. The field of robotics has found it very hard to mimic how a human walks, it is one of the most complicated things to model. How can something so seemingly complex be done without thinking?

PART III

Lets repeat the experiment but this time what I want you to do is be conscious of each step that you take. Try and be conscious of every part of the process of walking.

Walk at a normal pace, don't slow down the pace for this but you can try manpulating it after you have tried the following:

This time I want you to try and take total conscious control of the whole process. I want you to override the brains control of walking and notice what happens. I want you to try and assume command of every step and every single process of the walking. From raising your leg, to placing your foot. I want you to assume full control.


Ok lets go....


Right, what did you observe? 

I noticed the following:

I started walking and when I tried to take conscious control, I was unable to do so.
The body was pretty much on autopilot, doing it all by itself.
I was able to manipulate the speed, distance of step height of leg but as for actually walking I couldn't assume direct control over the motor function of the body.
There was no way I could assume command of the actual walking process itself, it could only be manipulated.
What does this imply? Well it implies that we cannot control motor functions in the way that we thought. We can only manipulate the process. But if you can manipulate the process, can we not attribute that to a thinker?

Ok lets take care of this once and for all.


PART IV - "the falcon punch"


Ok this one sounds crazy but I want you to go through with it and I am 100% serious about this. I have done it and I didn't get hurt. Ok I'm going to get you to punch yourself but don't worry you will not get hurt!

The idea of this is to trick the bodies survival mechanism. You see we think we have control over decisions and this nifty experiment just shows how much control we really have over manipulating our bodies movements.

So you actually have to be serious about going through with this and your job is to override the lockup that happens in the mind.

As I say you have to be sincerely honest about going through with this but I can guarantee you won't get hurt.
Right... I'm going to ask you to punch yourself in the nose full bore and I want you to seriously consider this.


Clench your fist and then put your fist in front of your chest. Now what I want you to do is psych yourself up and take a good hard swing as hard as you can in to your nose. You have to seriously want to do this and I want you to try as hard as you can to take the swing and smash you nose and override the bodies desire to not do it.



Pay careful attention to the process that happens once you are ready to do it.



Ok go.




First of all, a thought arose about punching myself in the face.
The thought to clench my fist arose and my hand moved in to position, to take a swing and strike myself.
At the point where I was ready, the image popped up of me running to the bathroom with my hand over my nose and blood dripping over the floor. 
Then the memories of the pain arose from previous times when I've been struck in the nose, particularly one a month ago where I was practicing martial arts and twatted myself in the nose with a bo.
Then my arm relaxed and the tension left my body.


This would be the urge I described not to do this and it was not overpowered. Why would it be?
Did I do it? No.
 What possible gain could this bring?
Something that has no possible gain, why would the mind decide to follow through with this action. This is honesty. I had to actually go through what it to experience the thought process.


These are my direct observations. When my fist was clenched and the images popped up, there was absolutely no "I" to make this decision, there was just an outcome. I could not in any way override this process.

I am not capable of overcoming my instincts, because there is no "I" involved in the process whatsoever.
The bodies survival mechanism kicked in and it could not in anyway be circumvented.

 If you actually managed to override the survival mechanism then the brain decided there was some benefit to be gained from doing the action. This would be down to attributing so much to a sense of self that you would go to any lengths to protect it. We can therefore draw this sound conclusion: If you are willing to punch yourself in the face to prove you exist then you are completely deluded are you not? The lie of self IS delusion.
(Note: the author does not condone self harm)

Experiment no.4