Are you in control of your mind?

[Anomalocaris]

Free will experiments may not explain whether we are in charge of our destinies – but they can nevertheless reveal just how little we know about our own minds, says Tom Stafford.

Why do we intuitively believe we have free will?

[Am_I_Psychic]

It stands to reason that we are governed by free will. It explains so much of both the good and the evil in this world.

I find it hard to believe that we are governed by fate. Sometimes it may seem that way, but inevitably there is always a cause and effect behind it.

[Wickian]

We still have no idea what consciousness is that makes those choices. Technically we're nothing but a large colony of independently acting micro-organisms that interact with each other. If you look at things that way, who knows what kinds of sentience is out there that just thinks and acts on a geological time-frame.

[Mikko-kun]

Well... you can be in control of your mind, but many people who I come across don't seem to be, and I know I ain't sometimes too. Sometimes there's periods when "the wheels just roll", those might be the times when the conscious chooser part quiets down.

It's possible to direct your "mind" (awareness & processing) to a greater extent, not control, but direct. Mind acts according to certain principles, just like body, but less rigidly (depending on person of course, some rigid-minded...). Mind is not something outside the "rules of reality", nor reality either: try force the mind like you try the body, and it strains like the body and breaks. It acts like body and has a physical existence as brain.

But now, what's the physical existence of that which directs the mind?

[Lilly]

Mental illness renders many without control of even their own thought processes....sad but true.