 The latest episode of Black Mirror brings up some really interesting questions when it comes to the philosophy of free will as well as the power of choice. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. And what I like to do is pull different topics from pop culture, try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So for all of my loyal subscribers, first off, I love you. I love you so much. But anyways, this video is going to be a little bit different, but kind of not. Most of you who know me, I try to see how mental health ties into everything. And one of my other passions aside from mental health is just philosophy. And I think philosophy is really important when it comes to mental health because for me, philosophy and just reading about different philosophical ideas or watching different philosophy channels on YouTube, it allows me to get a new perspective or a different perspective. A lot of our mental health is based on our perspective. If you don't believe me, think about half as glass full versus half glasses, half empty mentality, right? Think about optimism versus pessimism. Those are things that play into our mental health. So when we talk about philosophy and we're introduced to new ideas, they can possibly change our perspective on different situations, which actually help improve our mental health. So yeah, real quick, Bandersnatch, the latest episode of Black Mirror. There's not really going to be spoilers in this, but those of you who haven't seen it and you're just interested in watching this video. Bandersnatch is basically about this young man named Stefan or Stefan. I don't know how to pronounce it. They said it a couple of different times, but I forgot. Anyways, it's based in 1984, back when Choose Your Own Adventure books were kind of like the thing. So he takes this book, Bandersnatch, and he turns it into a video game. But basically throughout it, one of the issues that Stefan deals with is, is he in control? Is he really making his choices or is somebody else making the choices for him? And there's a few different ways that this episode of Black Mirror looks at, you know, this idea of free will, right? And destiny and fate, you know, from Colin to the original author, Davies, to the woman who did the documentary, right? But there's some really interesting topics that we can discuss. And I want to start off by talking about Buddhist philosophy, okay? So I love meditation, right? Like this is just my thing. But one of the reasons why meditation is so interesting to me is because there's so much philosophy behind it too. So there's a lot of Buddhist philosophy as well. So I'm really into Buddhist philosophy. I'm not into the religious aspect, but Buddhist philosophy is very interesting. So there's this philosophical idea of the non-self, okay? So Buddhism has been around for thousands of years. And basically part of Buddhism is coming to the realization that there is no such thing as self, right? Like we have this kind of idea that there's a little miniature version of us inside of our head that is making choices constantly, right? But what Buddhists found out thousands of years ago is when you sit down and get quiet and you actually watch your thoughts, you start to kind of get a little bit more clarity and you're like, wait, where are these thoughts coming from? You know, where are my actions coming from? And we start to see that most of our actions and most of our choices are coming from two different things. Two different things. Attraction and aversion, right? We want things that make us feel good and we don't want things that make us feel bad. And this kind of drives us, which is very interesting when you start thinking about the quote-unquote choices that we make and the free will that we have. And there's some great books on this. And by the way, I'm going to link a few books down in the description in the pinned comments that if you're interested in this kind of philosophy or even the neuroscience behind it, make sure you check out these books, all right? And one of the reasons this Buddhist philosophy of non-self is very important for your mental health is because we start to see that we are not the driving force behind our decisions. A lot of it is based on emotions. We do so many things based on emotions. So are we controlling our actions or are our emotions controlling us, right? Now, what's even more interesting is Rachel Oates. I know a lot of you are Rachel Oates fans. She's an awesome YouTuber. Go check her channel out. She recommended an author in one of her videos, Ruby Wax, okay? And Ruby Wax, one of her newest books is called How to Be Human. And in that book, she also has a neuroscientist and a monk, all right? So at the end of each chapter, the neuroscientists and the monk, they come in and they discuss these things too. And the neuroscientists, when you talk to him and there's a bunch of neuroscientists who will tell you this, is that these Buddhists from thousands of years ago, they're right. And what I mean by that is, if you were to hook your brain up to a brain scan, right? And if you got the best neuroscientists in the world and you got some neuroscience, point to me in the brain where the self is. Point to me in the brain where I am. They can't do that, right? So you have so many different parts of the brain. You have so many lobes and cortexes. You got the amygdala. You got the hippocampus. You know, all these different things. But when you go inside the brain and all these different parts, there's no part where it's like, that is you. So that idea that we've had for so long, of there's a little miniature us inside that's just kind of making these decisions, it doesn't exist. Basically, there's so many things that go into the decisions that we make, the choices that we make, the way that we feel. There's so many different connections that are being made on a regular basis that are driving us to make these choices. Like when you watch an episode like Black Mirror and Stefan's like freaking out like, who's doing this? Who are you, right? Like, this is something that we need to ask ourselves too. Not in that kind of like, hey, who's controlling me? But we need to ask ourselves and sit down and say like, where are these thoughts coming from? What drove me to do that thing, right? Because what we find, what we find is when we journal, when we meditate, we are basically just this culmination of our experiences. So what's interesting is Tristan, my beautiful girlfriend and I, we watch band or snatch together and those of you who haven't watched it, it's interactive, you get to make choices. And Tristan, you know, her and I are like yin and yang, right? So she gets kind of like that darker mentality and I'm kind of like, no, let's try to get a happy ending, right? But like even just looking at the two different ways that we see our options, think about it. You know, Tristan has had her entire life, I've had my entire life. Now, why is it that we choose what we choose? You see what I mean? So this also helps me have more empathy to other people in the world, right? Because everybody is just a big sum of every experience that they've had. This is why it's so important to be more empathetic to people who have mental illness, especially mental illnesses like PTSD or personality disorders. A lot of personality disorders are based on a way a person was raised, right? Trauma is based on things that happened to that person. So we have to realize that, for example, somebody who has been through trauma, they might have more anxiety than somebody else. They might be more conscious than somebody else. You see what I mean? Now, imagine if that traumatic experience never happened, would they be as cautious? You see what I'm saying? Now, the second part of this is this illusion of free will when it comes to our choices. So a great book that I'm linking down below is called Free Will by Sam Harris. So Sam Harris is a neuroscientist. He's also kind of a modern-day philosopher. Free Will is an excellent book. It's a very short book. If you get the audio book, I think it's like an hour and a half. But Sam Harris, he dives into this idea of where our choices come from, right? And the further you go down to our choices, like, why did I decide to eat? Oh, because I'm hungry, right? Well, why did I decide to pick that food? Oh, because I've had it before. Well, why did I have it in the first place? And, like, the further you go down, you start to see that these thoughts, these ideas, these choices that we make, they seem to spring up from this void. They come from nothingness, right? So I definitely recommend you check out that book. It just kind of gets your wheels turning and have you ask yourself, like, why do I make the choices that I make? Do I really have free will? Now, something I want to throw out as a disclaimer is, yes and no. We do have free will and we don't. Like, we do have the power of choice. But so many of us live in this autopilot where we let our emotions drive us. So are we really in control? When we do something out of anger, are we really in control? When we do something out of fear, are we really in control? When we do something out of lust, are we really in control? You see what I mean? Like, there's so many things that are happening where we like to think that we're in control, but we're really not. But what's the solution to this? What's the solution to all this? And I recommend two things. Meditation and or journaling, okay? Getting quiet and seeing where your thoughts are coming from. So those of you who watched my James Charles video, I explained the prefrontal cortex. Part of the prefrontal cortex responsibility is impulse control, right? So the more you train your mind, the more you can pause and say, whoa, why was I about to do that? Where did this come from? Oh, it came from anger. It came from fear. Like, my book, Rewire Your Anger for those of you who have read it or those of you who haven't. One of the foundations in that book is understanding that anger comes from a place of fear. So now when I get angry, I can take a pause and say, what am I afraid of? But this also helps greatly with your mental health because, like, I tweeted out the other day, like always remember that just because your brain says something doesn't mean it's true. Like, if you had the power of choice when it comes to your thoughts, right? Would you ever have a negative thought ever? Who would, right? Would you choose to be angry? Would you choose to be depressed? Would you choose to be anxious? We are in very, very little control of our brain. But what we can do is we can strengthen different practices to rewire different neurological networks in our brain to help us make better decisions, to make better choices, right? Like, think about the choices we make when it comes to food, right? Do we choose to eat unhealthy? If it was our choice, we'd probably be the healthiest people on earth, right? Like, for example, I'm a smoker. Cigarettes have control over me. I am not choosing. They have made me their business, all right? When I was a drug addict and alcoholic, I was not in control. So I love the fact that, you know, Black Mirror especially, I did a bunch of other Black Mirror reviews on the last season before my channel, like, blew up. And if you want to, go check them out if you got into the last season of Black Mirror. But I like taking examples of this to just kind of, like, get you to, you know, kick up the gears in your critical thinking a little bit and start looking at this. But remember, remember, although free will is kind of this like wishy-washy thing, we can train our brains to make better choices, to make healthier choices when it comes to our relationships, when it comes to our mental health. You know what I mean? So just think about that for a little bit. And again, I will link all these books down in the description as well as in the pinned comments. But let me know. Let me know what you thought about Band or Snatch. I'm also going to do another video where I discuss disassociation and derealization that was kind of depicted in Band or Snatch. So make sure that you stay tuned for that video as well, alright? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And we have some brand new perks over on Patreon for 2019. So click the tab right there and go check them out, alright? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.