A Level 4 high-automation vehicle has sensors that collect information from the environment and feed it into a highly trained network that can detect traffic lights, signs, pedestrians, lane markings, other vehicles, and weather conditions. With that information, the network can make decisions by selecting the best lane, adjusting speed in traffic, avoiding road hazards, swerving to prevent accidents, and pulling over in an emergency. When driving, the car controls the gas, brake, and steering, automatically adjusting them relative to its decisions.

The vehicle manages internal functions, information processing, and automatic responses all on its own. As the driver, we have no visibility into the initial processing and response of the self-driving system until it happens. We are the experiencers processing the result of the car’s automatic reactions as they arise. We decide whether to accept them or to take the wheel in corrective action instead. 

In the human-level 4 high-automation vehicle, our self-driving system manages over 1,100 bodily functions, including heart rate, digestion, blood filtration, cell production, and immune function, all to keep the vehicle running.¹ It has sensors for the eyes, nose, ears, skin, and mouth that collect information from the environment and send it into our network. That information shapes patterns through experience, allowing the self-driving system to detect and respond instantly to everything we encounter. 

Our human self-driving vehicle processes 11 million bits of information each second, enabling it to sense external objects, interpret information, and respond.^{2 3} It has reflexive reactions, such as sneezing, coughing, vomiting, itching, yawning, and recoiling from pain. Others are emotional and habitual, like when we get angry, laugh, cry, blush, drink coffee, bite our nails, smoke a cigarette, check our phone when it beeps, or smile when people smile at us. Even when we are idle, the vehicle has a default mode response, generating mind-wandering and rumination. Our self-driving vehicle always works in the background to come up with the first response to all we encounter. 

The driver equates to consciousness, and they are only aware of the result of self-driving decisions. The driver is not conscious of all the processing and responses made by the vehicle until they occur, making all self-driving operations nonconscious. Our self-driving system operates in the background nonconsciously and is responsible for most of our mental activity and initial responses to all we encounter.⁴ 

 Our self-driving system forms patterns through a lifetime of experience and uses them to respond as it moves through the environment. These are emotionless patterns of hardwired behavioral circuits wired through experience.⁵ Our vehicle is the primary driver, selecting from a repository of impersonal responses to navigate the environment.⁶  Our nonconscious self-driving system is the first to process information and respond, producing our automatic thoughts, feelings, and actions. ^{7 8}  Most often, we are the conscious driver, making sense of automatic decisions after they happen. 

Our self-driving nonconscious cries from a movie, laughs at someone falling, blushes when embarrassed, accidentally says something rude, ruminates on past or future events, prompts us to watch TV, and constantly checks our phone. We are the conscious driver sitting shotgun at the wheel, constructing an explanation for these self-driving decisions.⁹  As the driver, I become aware of my tears while watching a movie after the self-driving system triggers them. From there, I can decide whether to keep crying or not. Of course, our driver can also cry on demand, like a seasoned actor, but aside from intentionally making ourselves cry, our tears and other similar responses are nonconscious.

As the driver, we have no direct access to nonconscious processing until after the self-driving system generates it.¹⁰ The conscious driver provides a second level of processing that accesses a storehouse of memories and knowledge to make sense of self-driving responses, with the ability to come up with alternatives when needed.¹¹ The driver is the executive at the wheel acting as a supervisor who can modify, edit, and sensor a self-driving system that makes our first decisions.^{12 13} 

Many experts suggest that free will is more like free won’t because consciousness interacts with self-driving decisions after they happen.¹⁴ Studies indicate that the conscious driver processes between 16 and 50 bits per second, compared to the 11 million that the nonconscious manages. ¹⁵ The self-driving system does most of the work while we watch it unfold and monitor its decisions. 

When riding inside a Level 4 high-automation car for the first time, we will watch it closely, ready to take the wheel at a moment’s notice. After a while, we will trust that the vehicle can navigate successfully on its own, as we fully trust its decisions and place our attention elsewhere while it drives. We can look at our phone, call someone, meditate, or go to sleep – whatever we want- and leave the vehicle unattended to navigate with minimal supervision. 

If the car suddenly brakes, swerves, or signals for assistance, we’ll snap to attention and take over, using our additional processing power to get out of the jam. We can also take control whenever we want, if we’re bored and want to drive instead. How much the human drives versus how much the vehicle drives will vary from person to person. Some people may only take the wheel when absolutely necessary, while others may still enjoy driving from time to time.  On average, the vehicle will do 90 percent of the overall driving while we engage intermittently to help when it is stuck. 

Our human vehicle follows a similar setup, where the self-driving system drives most of the time, with the conscious driver only intervening when an error occurs. Think of when you are walking up a broken escalator. The self-driving system thinks the escalator is moving, but the driver steps in to confirm it isn’t, and takes manual control to help us walk up. Although we believe we are in control, our driver typically only takes the wheel when there is an error. Generally, our driver becomes so accustomed to our self-driving system that they leave it to drive unsupervised, as we rarely second-guess its automatic responses. 

We think we are the primary driver, but experts suggest that our nonconscious self-driving system produces 80-90 percent of our thoughts and actions.¹⁶ Stem cell DNA scientist Bruce Lipton believes that 95 percent of our daily responses are nonconscious.¹⁷ Our self-driving system is always driving unless we take the wheel from it. How much overall driving our self-driving system performs is a spectrum that varies for each of us, depending on how often we engage our driver.

If we are continually disengaged, sleeping at the wheel, and never intervene with the self-driving system, then it could be doing up to 95 percent of the driving. On the other hand, if we closely supervise the self-driving system and take the wheel in corrective action often, we could lower that to 80 percent. Either way, we are behind the wheel of a self-driving system that does most of the driving.

Some of the responses made by the vehicle are not accurate, but since the driver agrees with them, they are left unchallenged and remain unchanged. We can all benefit from waking our driver to challenge our self-driving responses more often. Every time the driver overrides the self-driving system with a new response, it can eventually replace the automatic one. As we progress, we will continue to explore the nonconscious to build awareness and learn how to use our driver to rewire our self-driving system for success and better health.

Endnotes

1. Pulos, Lee. P.110. Beyond Hypnosis: How to Use Your Mind to Achieve Personal Goals. Ascent Audio, 2015,
2. Mlodinow, Leonard .P.33. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. Vintage, 2012.
3. Yates, John, et al. P.345.The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness. Atria Books, 2017.
4. Sigman, Mariano. P.104. The Secret Life of the Mind: How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides. Little, Brown Spark, 2017.
5. Lipton, Bruce H. P.174. The Biology of Belief 10th Anniversary Edition: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles. Hay House Inc., 2015.
6. Fabritius, Friederike, and Hans W. Hagemann. P.148. The Leading Brain: Neuroscience Hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier. TarcherPerigee, 2017.
7. Fabritius, Friederike, and Hans W. Hagemann.P.143. The Leading Brain
8. Ledoux, Joseph. P.10. Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. Penguin Books, 2003.
9. Ledoux, Joseph. P.1. Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. Penguin Books, 2015.
10. Ledoux, Joseph. P.148. Anxious
11. Sternberg, Eliezer.P.8. NeuroLogic: The Brain’s Hidden Rationale Behind Our Irrational Behavior. Vintage, 2016
12. Sigman, Mariano. P.104. The Secret Life of the Mind: How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides. Little, Brown Spark, 2017
13. Sternberg, Eliezer. P.9. NeuroLogic
14. Macknik, Stephen L., et al. P.181. Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. Henry Holt and Co., 2010
15. Mlodinow, Leonard.P.33. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. Vintage, 2012.
16. Myers, David. P.26. How Do We Know Ourselves?: Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
17. Bishop, Gary John. P.58. Unfuk Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life (Unfuk Yourself series). HarperOne, 2017.