the zombie within...

An interesting piece about neuroscientists researching "zombie behaviors," meaning all the things we do without being consciously aware of our doing them:

"We all do things every day, virtually every minute, that do not involve conscious thought, from tying our shoes, to driving to work or working out, to cooking dinner," said Koch. "These actions are essentially routine, automatic. You do them without thinking and often have no direct memory of them afterward."

Neurobiologists call these actions "zombie behaviors," activities that occur without conscious input or self-examination. They have been a subject of scholarly debate for more than a century, serious grist for philosophers and psychologists like Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. Increasingly, they are also the stuff of science.

Koch says neuroscience has accumulated credible evidence that the brain is filled with specialized sensory-motor processes, what he calls "zombie agents," that carry out these unthinking behaviors. He says there is a plausible explanation for their existence: They allow us to be us.