Edaw asked:

Do we control what we think or does what we think control us? (Important to note that we can
sometimes think we are in control when we are not.)

If what we think controls us, who controls what we think?

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Example one: you play billiards, and you hit the cue ball, which hits another, and so forth. You control
the balls; everything is linear.

Example two: the billiard table is set up so that it starts with a few balls on it, and a new ball is
automatically placed in front of the cue stick every few seconds (up to a maximum number... maybe
they're extracted from the pockets, if you're playing that kind of billiards, or maybe they're plucked
randomly off the table), while the balls are still moving from the previous stroke. The angle the stick
hits at, and its velocity, are controlled by a set of sensors which use the positions of the balls on the
table and their velocities to generate angle and speed of stroke. Thus, that angle and speed a) are
never the same, and b) they are controlled by the balls that the stick hits, and by the stick which hits
the balls.

So in the second example, what is controlling what? Is the stick, hitting the balls, controlling them, or
are the balls, generating the angle and force of the stick, controlling it?

You might think of our central nervous system as something like the second example.

Steven Ravett Brown