Can you make a decision without your conscious mind, you can, but it will be more of the same. I think that if you want something different in your life it has to be a conscious decision. What do you think, Brian?

I tend to think that the reality is the exact opposite.

This dude Alan Watts said, "Give up trying to improve the self, because it is the self that needs improving."

Again, look to nature.

We are the only species that makes internal sensory representations. How do I know that? I don't. But then again, how do I know that anyone makes internal sensory represtantions? I don't. (Though I'm not a solipsist.) I only know that I don't make them when I'm meditating or when I am engaged in a complex task.

Single-celled organisms don't make internal representations. And yet they "chose??" to strive and evolve to homo sapiens. Ants build anthills, they search for food, leave elaborate smell trails, etc. All without internal sensory representations. Chimpanzees use sticks to get ants out of their shelter. Is that the result of an internal representation?

None of us know,
but my feeling is... no.
They just go go go.

I wouldn't call that Zombie-hood. I'd call that ... life? Life as nature intended. Free-flowing life, as opposed to stop-and-go life.

The ego is rather like pointing a video camera at it's television monitor...you get infinite feedback.

Seems more like a result of not challenging oneself. We're not constantly engaged in the external world of nature or in complex civilized activities as animals in the wild are. We're ambling. We're...taking our time. Nature is urgent in it's pursuits. Unlike ants, monkeys, trees, fungi, virii, we're avoidant of ceaseless challenge. It seems only natural that our vast minds would turn in on themselves. We've got so much unstructured time!