Who Decides First?

There is a silent assumption we grow up with: that the mind serves us. That it obeys our commands, executes our intentions, and reflects our conscious will.

But what if that assumption is false? 

What if the mind is not our tool – but our sovereign? 

What if the mind, from a strict biological perspective, is loyal only to one thing: the survival of the body, even if that means overriding what we call the self?

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet published one of the most unsettling findings in the history of brain science. 

He asked participants to move a finger whenever they felt like it, and to report the precise moment they became aware of the urge to do so. 

At the same time, EEG machines recorded their brain activity.

The results were clear – and disturbing: 

The brain initiated the motor command nearly 350 milliseconds **before** the participant reported feeling the intention to act. 

The decision had already been made. 

Your awareness came after the fact.

This raised a profound philosophical question: 

If the brain acts before the self is aware, is the self truly free? 

Or is it merely receiving post-facto notifications from a deeper, hidden authority?

This is not a semantic trick. It is a structural revelation. 

What we call “the self” might not be the author of our actions, but their narrator. 

The mind, understood as a biological organ evolved for survival, does not prioritize truth, ethics, or liberty.

It prioritizes **efficiency, safety, and metabolic economy**. 

If that means bypassing the conscious self, it will do so – without apology.

Libet himself did not claim we have no free will. 

He proposed a more limited concept: perhaps we cannot initiate actions freely, but we can **veto** them after they begin.

What he called “free won’t” – the power to stop a process already in motion.

But even this “freedom” is conditional.

The mind permits veto only when the cost is acceptable. 

It allows you to object – but never to rule.

This reframes the mind not as a servant, but as a **guardian of bodily continuity**, governed by evolutionary logic, not existential ideals. 

You may want to pause, to question, to rethink. The mind, however, views such acts as delays – risky, energy-consuming, and often unnecessary.

Introspection? Costly.

Philosophical inquiry? Biologically irrelevant. 

Ethical reflection? A potential threat to action.

The mind does not resist because it is evil – it resists because it is programmed to maintain metabolic survival, not abstract freedom.

Seen this way, Libet’s experiment doesn’t destroy free will. It merely reveals its narrow habitat.

We don’t own the beginning of our actions. At best, we get to shape their end. 

Free will, then, is not the origin – but the interruption.

The deeper implication is this: 

The mind does not consider the conscious self to be a master. 

It sees it as a secondary process – a system of narrative coherence built to justify decisions already made.

You feel that you chose. 

But every time you experience that feeling, ask: 

Did I choose? Or was the choice made, and then handed to me as if it were mine?

This is not a call to hate the mind. 

It is a call to understand its loyalties.

We are not its rulers – we are components within its architecture. 

And every attempt to awaken to ourselves begins with this recognition.

Perhaps true freedom does not lie in commanding the mind, 

but in recognizing the quiet war it wages… 

and choosing, moment by moment, how far we are willing to resist.