In your article on conscious and unconscious thought you focus on higher cognitive functions, such as logic and mathematics (“Incognito,” April 18, 2009). But there is much evidence that brains decide before their owners know about it in many other cognitive contexts, including tastes, preferences, or moral choices. Feeling that their brains are perforce their own, people often report that they are annoyed by their first reactions to many a novel situation. It takes a while for most people to realize that their brains have to do with the collective experience of the human species built into their synapses rather than their own personal experiences, upbringing, or education. Conscious thought apparently has little bearing on much of our lives. As you say, the brain prefers to work incognito—that is, to keep us unconscious of its ways and means.