Here’s something I’d learned about before, but didn’t really understand until nursing school:
When you put your hand on a hot stove
(or any extremity on any major, unexpected source of pain), the decision to pull it away happens in your back. That’s what a spinal reflex means–not just that the action is automatic, but that your brain isn’t even consulted.
You will never remember it this way. You will always remember the event as “the stove felt hot so I pulled my hand away.” But “you” didn’t do anything. All you did was come up with a justification after your back had already acted. Even if you know this intellectually, it won’t change anything–you still won’t be able to remember your hand acting on its own. Your brain will not allow it.
There are more parts of the nervous system that work this way than you’d probably like to think about.
Alternate framing: your spinal cord (and indeed your whole body) is part of “you” just like your brain
Alternate, alternate framing: Almost none of your brain is “you” either.
The parts of your brain that consciously think “My name is [name]! I want to do good things and not do bad things! Here are some decisions I’m going to make!” are pretty much dwarfed by the ones that don’t. We usually frame them as acting in service to the consciousness–your non-conscious brain may help you balance when you walk, but you tell it where you want to go–but then again, you also think you decided to take your hand off the stove.
Have you ever walked into a room, and then wondered what you were supposed to do in there? You think you just forgot. But what if you really didn’t know?
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(Please note: this is mostly me going “oooh, wouldn’t it be creepy if,” and at this point I have strayed pretty far from the amount of neuroscience I actually know.)
There’re a few sci-fi stories that play with this idea!
just moving along like everyone else 