BTSO, yes, 'consciousness' and 'belief': jeez, don't get me started
I'm drawn to what I can find of recent books on both topics, so yeh, I've also noted the experimental finding about 'thoughts arising in consciousness before [we] think them'. From memory, it's summat to do with....? Oh, blast, too early in the morning to coherently manage this one :-)
Interestingly - and probably unsurprisingly - Buddhism observed that very process too, a very long time ago.
Yeh, it would be nice, wouldn't it eh? if we could control our thoughts and be in a state of enlightened bliss! Heheh....about the best I can manage is mere moments of mindfulness throughout each day. I have humble aspirations: to simply return from any inner turmoil to a little equanimity. For me, recently, that feat alone is HUGE!
Soberlicious: JT in monks' robes? I sorta take your point (and had a good chuckle); equally though, now you've got me imagining some aged master wryly observing JT's passionate adherence to 'views' :-)
'self', 'soul' - 'no-self', 'no-soul'....sheesh, yeah, bowerbirds like me pluck at 'em all! I guess that 'my' clearer calmer moments are coming from, in the end of the analysis, that open space of Big Mind, where even such concepts - as much as we cling to them, including 'no self', 'no soul' - waft away into air. Pema Chodron I think often calls it just resting in spaciousness. When I'm beset by some irritation or another, especially a thought of drinking in our current context of discussion, that spaciousness of options, possibility, not-being-driven / compelled to or from anything, can be a tiny life saver. It might and usually does only last for a few minutes, if that, but it can sometimes change the tenor of my day.
After what feels like about a lifetime of almost continual suffering in various ways, I accept those moments of relief with gratitude and wonder.
And then have to go and do the weeding again :-)