Your mind causes you to do whatever you do, whether it's done by the conscious mind, or whether it's done by some other part of the brain. It's all you.

A great deal of the mental functioning of the brain just isn't visible to the conscious mind. Call that terra incognito "the unconscious" or call it "the brain", either way we can't observe most of what our own mind is doing. I think the conscious mind is just one of numerous operational centers in the brain. It makes the most noise, so we notice it, but our thinking is carried on out of the conscious mind's ear shot in various places, silently, out of our sight -- UNTIL the result is forwarded to the conscious mind and "suddenly we have an idea".

An example of this system is when you are trying very hard to think of something, and you can't remember it no matter what. So you stop thinking about it, and suddenly the word, name, or whatever pops right into your conscious mind. Problems that seem insoluble at bedtime can be totally solvable the next morning. "Intuition" is an idea sent to the conscious mind from somewhere in the brain.

Something other than the conscious mind often calls the shots, but it isn't an alien or some dark force, so to speak, it's just your own head doing what it does in the background. Sort of like spell checking; it is constantly (and invisibly) checking our spelling all the time but it doesn't do anything noticeable until you misspell a word, then suddenly it makes itself visible.

The startle response upon seeing a snake might not be "unconscious" -- it's probably more of a reflex operated by the CNS below the level of higher brain functions. Animals have this reflex system, because by the end of the second or two the brain needs to make up it's mind about the snake and what you should do about it, you might already be bitten. The reflex arc takes less than a second, and that could save you from a very painful bite.

It is planned and deliberate, not a reaction.

How would a determinist explain such a decision to deliberately jump in the air? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

What caused you to plan and deliberate to jump in the air?

What caused you to plan and deliberate to jump in the air? — darthbarracuda

It wasn't really planned, but after I reported that I read that plants can sense gravity someone insisted that he can sense gravity. You are sensing the floor, not gravity, I said. I can jump in the air, I said, (I then did so) and deduce with my reasoning ability that something called gravity pulled me to the ground, but I am not sensing gravity.

For some reason known only to you, you wanted to do one of those things.

... obviously.

Michael Ossipoff

...or maybe not consciously known to you.

Michael Ossipoff