In many respects, our own lives are very much like the series because we frequently observe ourselves making decisions and doing things for which we do not really have any control, for a huge variety of reasons. There is, nevertheless, no excuse available that we do not have the power of choice. The grand illusion of being a human being in the modern age is that you do have control over your actions, and that you are therefore ultimately responsible for everything that you do. There is no room in the modern legal framework for the notion that your actions are predetermined or that you are being controlled.
- When I worked in Washington, I would pass almost every day a man carrying a sign that read to the effect that your thoughts were being controlled and that a secret department of the government of the US had discovered a fool proof method of thought control.
- In the series, Torchwood, there is an episode where an agent of Torchwood is given an amulet by an alien. Wearing the amulet confers the ability to hear the thoughts of others nearby. This new sense gives one an amazing power over others.
Our reality is that we make assumptions about how much we are in control of our thoughts and our actions. The assumptions may not be correct for they are only assumptions.
My feeling, though I have no proof to offer, is that our assumptions that we are in control the majority of time, do not apply to our reality. In other words, we are not really in control, but we have the grand illusion that we are.
Behaviour Arising from Our Subconscious
Many of my readers may have experienced the strange feeling of being controlled by a magician or hypnotist. Deep inside our brain, the older part of our brain, there is possibly an area that results in human behaviour a bit like the behaviour of a moth. Do something to this area of the brain and the response is reliable and automatic. Touch the amygdala as in brain surgery, and the patient may experience anger or fear. Many of our habits have their origins in this type of autonomic response, for example, our breathing. It is a fact, that we have to be shown how to breath deeply. We do not normally breath deeply 'automatically'. When we do, we benefit, but few of us do such breathing.
The autonomic system is only part of the areas of the brain that carry out actions without conscious thought. In fact, we would probably find that most of what we do or decide to do requires little or no thought, and for good reason. Thought slows us down, and possibly those humans that spent a lot of time thinking did not survive the rigors of early life on this planet. Certainly, natural selection would probably weed out those that thought a lot. What remains is a substantial population of human beings that don't really think very much. There is a lot that we would not do were we to think about about it.
Our Predisposition not to Think
We, humans, probably have, as well, a predisposition not to think. The implications of this are quite staggering. What it means is that we do not presently exercise much control over our actions and our decisions. Much of who we are and think we are, is automatically determined. We humans are much like moths and cows though we have the grand illusion that we think and that we have control and that we decide. Our reality is that we do not think, we do not act on the basis of thought, and we exercise very little control.
In the words of Arthur Koestler, we are sleepwalking our way through our lives.