Personally I like to think we ourselves take part in said choice but overall we don't make it as individuals. Think of Mushrooms; When most of us think of fungus, we imagine mushrooms sprouting out of the ground. Those mushrooms are in fact the “fruit” of the fungus, while the majority of the fungal organism lives in the soil interwoven with tree roots as a vast network of mycelium. "Mycelium are incredibly tiny “threads” of the greater fungal organism that wrap around or bore into tree roots." Taken together, myecelium composes what’s called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals. So I guess I personally subscribe to the theory of collective consciousness.