cpwm17
(3,829 posts)How do they pop into your conscious brain? You claim you have free will, so you have to know where your thoughts come from.
The decision to eat potatoes or carrots originates with a desire, perhaps originating with hunger. This desire is imposed on your consciousness. The desire is a motivational force which automatically makes your brain prioritizes your hunger.
Our brains are automatic brain-storming machines. So in our every waking moment stuff flows through our brains. Consciousness plays a part. In my opinion, along with being a motivational force, the desires in consciousness force our complicated brains to act as one. As thoughts pass through our conscious brains, our consciousness automatically react to these thoughts with feelings (usually subtle, sometimes not). The force of feelings automatically keeps our thoughts on track, and our brains working on one particular goal of the moment. Hunger is usually a more powerful feeling which pushes our brains in a particular direction. In the big picture, this process isn't deliberate. It's automatic. You can't stop it.
Social rules are learned. They only exist in our heads.
In every step of the way thoughts automatically pop in our heads. For difficult problems not dealt with before, we can break up our thoughts into understandable and previously learned steps. Everything is still ultimately imposed on our conscious minds.