the latest episode of black mirror called bandersnatch brings out 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 so 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 any of 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 gonna 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 got full versus half glasses half-empty mentality right think
about optimism first pessimism those are things that play into our mental health
so when we talk about philosophy and we're introduced to new ideas it could
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 gonna be
spoilers in this but those of you who haven't seen it you're just interested
in watching this video Bandersnatch is basically about this young man named
Stefan or Stefan to pronounce it they said it a couple of different times but
I forgot anyways it's based in 1984 back when like choose your own you know
adventure book so I kind of like the thing so he takes this book Bandersnatch
and he turns it into a video game but basically like throughout it you know
one of the issues that Stefan deals with is you know is he in control is he
really making his choices whereas 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 freewill right and
destiny and fate you know from : 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 to 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 freewill that we have and there's some great books on this and by
the way I'm gonna link a few books down to the description and 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 alright 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 in the monk they come in and they discuss these things too and
the neuroscientist 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 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 neuroscientist in the world and
you ask 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 cortex is you got the
amygdalae you got the hippocampus you know all these different things but when
you look 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
and 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 be making or being
made on a regular basis that are driving us to make these choices so like when
you watch an episode by 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 to not in that kind of like a 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 when we journal when we meditate we are basically just this culmination
of our experiences ok so what's interesting is Tristan my beautiful
girlfriend and I we watch Bandersnatch together and those of you that watch it
it's interactive you get to make choices and Tristan you know who I am I giving
yeah right so she
it's 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 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's been through
trauma they might have more anxiety than somebody else they might be more
cautious 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 like kind of
a modern-day philosopher freewill is an excellent book like if you it's a very
short book if you get the audiobook I think it's like an hour and a half but
Sam how she dives into this idea of like 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 asked yourself like why do I make the choices
that I made 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 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
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 two
things meditation and or journaling okay getting quiet and seeing where your
thoughts are coming from so those of you who watch my James challahs 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 that 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 I think about the choices we make when it comes to food right do we choose
to eat unhealthy if it was our choice we probably 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 alright when I was a drug
addict an alcoholic I was not in control so I loved 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 the black mirror but I like taking examples of this it
just kind of like get you to you know kick up the kick up the gears and your
critical thinking a little bit it's not looking at this but remember remember
although free will is kind of like wishy-washy thing we got 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 pen comments but let me know let
me know what you thought about Bandersnatch I'm also going to do
another video where I discuss disassociation and D realization that
was kind of depicted in Bandersnatch so make sure you stay tuned for that video
as well alright but anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this
video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and
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watching I'll see you next time