The Illusion of Conscious Will

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Wegner ◽  
Daniel Gilbert ◽  
Thalia Wheatley
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will ◽  
Ouija Board

Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. The first edition of this book proposed an innovative and provocative answer: the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain; it helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, the book says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion (“the most compelling illusion”), it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. This new edition includes a foreword and an introduction. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, the book examines cases both when people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing and when they are not willing an act that they in fact are doing in such phenomena as hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, and dissociative identity disorder. The author's argument was immediately controversial (called “unwarranted impertinence” by one scholar) but also compelling, and the book has been called the author's magnum opus.

The Mind’s Compass

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will

This chapter analyzes why the conscious experience of will might exist at all. Conscious will can be seen as a feeling that organizes and informs one's understanding of their own agency. Conscious will is a signal with many of the qualities of an emotion, one that reverberates through the mind and body to indicate when a person senses having authored an action. The idea that conscious will is an emotion of authorship moves beyond the standard way in which people have been thinking about free will and determinism and presses toward a useful new perspective. The chapter explores how the emotion of authorship serves key functions in the domains of achievement and morality.

scholarly journals The possibility of physicalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 242-250
Author(s):  
Eduardo Giannetti
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Modern science has undermined belief in countless imaginary causalities. What is the nature of the relation between mind and brain? Philosophers have debated the issue for millennia, but it is only in the last twenty years that empirical evidence has begun to uncover some of the secrets of this ancient riddle. This lecture explores the possiblity that advances in neuroscience will undermine and subvert our intuitive, mentalist understanding of the mind-body relationship. Recent findings in neuroscience seem to support the notions that (i) mental events are a subclass of neurophysiological events, and (ii) they are devoid of causal efficacy upon the workings of the brain. If physicalism is true then the belief in the causal potency of conscious thoughts and free will are bound to join company with countless other imaginary causalities exploded by the progress of science.

Why conscious free will both is and isn't an illusion

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 677-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Velmans
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
First Person ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will

Wegner's analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and complementary to a third-person account of voluntary processing in the mind/brain.

Précis of The illusion of conscious will

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 649-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Wegner
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Facilitated Communication ◽  
Speaking In Tongues ◽  
Alien Hand Syndrome ◽  
Clinical Disorders ◽  
Alien Hand ◽  
Causal Sequence ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will ◽  
Ouija Board

The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we are doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. This happens in clinical disorders such as alien hand syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. And in people without disorders, phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, Ouija board spelling, water dowsing, facilitated communication, speaking in tongues, spirit possession, and trance channeling also illustrate anomalies of will – cases when actions occur without will or will occurs without action. This book brings these cases together with research evidence from laboratories in psychology to explore a theory of apparent mental causation. According to this theory, when a thought appears in consciousness just prior to an action, is consistent with the action, and appears exclusive of salient alternative causes of the action, we experience conscious will and ascribe authorship to ourselves for the action. Experiences of conscious will thus arise from processes whereby the mind interprets itself – not from processes whereby mind creates action. Conscious will, in this view, is an indication that we think we have caused an action, not a revelation of the causal sequence by which the action was produced.

A chronology of Distributed Adaptive Control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. M. J. Verschure
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Control ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Integration Framework ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distributed Adaptive Control ◽  
Core Components ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Convergent Validation ◽  
The Mind ◽  
And Behavior

This chapter presents the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) theory of the mind and brain of living machines. DAC provides an explanatory framework for biological brains and an integration framework for synthetic ones. DAC builds on several themes presented in the handbook: it integrates different perspectives on mind and brain, exemplifies the synthetic method in understanding living machines, answers well-defined constraints faced by living machines, and provides a route for the convergent validation of anatomy, physiology, and behavior in our explanation of biological living machines. DAC addresses the fundamental question of how a living machine can obtain, retain, and express valid knowledge of its world. We look at the core components of DAC, specific benchmarks derived from the engagement with the physical and the social world (the H4W and the H5W problems) in foraging and human–robot interaction tasks. Lastly we address how DAC targets the UTEM benchmark and the relation with contemporary developments in AI.

Contemporary psychosurgery and a look to the future

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 944-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Feldman ◽  
Ronald L. Alterman ◽  
James T. Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Psychiatric Disease ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Current State ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Patient Selection Criteria ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Fine Print

Object. Despite a long and controversial history, psychosurgery has persisted as a modern treatment option for some severe, medically intractable psychiatric disorders. The goal of this study was to review the current state of psychosurgery. Methods. In this review, the definition of psychosurgery, patient selection criteria, and anatomical and physiological rationales for cingulotomy, subcaudate tractotomy, anterior capsulotomy, and limbic leukotomy are discussed. The historical developments, modern procedures, and results of these four contemporary psychosurgical procedures are also reviewed. Examples of recent advances in neuroscience indicating a future role for neurosurgical intervention for psychiatric disease are also mentioned. Conclusions. A thorough understanding of contemporary psychosurgery will help neurosurgeons and other physicians face the ethical, social, and technical challenges that are sure to lie ahead as modern science continues to unlock the secrets of the mind and brain.

Dissociative Amnesia and Dissociative Identity Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (73) (1) ◽  
pp. 207-216
Author(s):  
Bogdan Eduard Patrichi ◽  
Cristina Ene ◽  
Cristina Rîndaşu ◽  
Arina Cipriana Trifu
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Dissociative Disorders ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Traumatic Life Events ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

The current paper aims to describe and exemplify the pathology that is increasingly common in contemporary society, compared to the Freudian period in which repression was dominating. Dissociative disorders are usually associated with overwhelming stress, which can be generated by traumatic life events, accidents or disasters experienced directly or witnessed by the individual, or unbearable inner conflicts, which force the mind to separate incompatible or unacceptable pieces of information and feelings.

What is the Mind and Brain?

2012 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
C. Alexander Simpkins ◽  
Annellen M. Simpkins
Keyword(s):  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind

scholarly journals The Transformation of Ice-Candy-Man: Account of Partition Trauma in Cracking India

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Archana Katariya ◽  
Priyanka Chaudhary
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Events ◽  
The Core ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Partition Of India ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Transition Stages ◽  
Traumatic Impact ◽  
Changing Society

This article aims to unveil the capricious transformation of the key figure, Ice-Candy-Man (named Dilnawaz) and the riotous traumatic impact of the Partition of India on his personality in Cracking India. The most arousing, poignant, efficacious figure Ice-Candy-Man of Bapsi Sidhwa’s magnum opus Cracking India traps the mind of the readers. Sidhwa, the original mark and a victim of the Partition in 1947, had sensed the brutal incidents which impaled her heart with pathos and enforced her to pen it down by presenting vivacious, colorful characters with autobiographical touches. The Ice-Candy-Man appears with a different disguise each time. Why did Sidhwa characterize him in such a specific and dynamic manner? His gestures, speech and even his transition stages and his every next footstep are the symbols and metaphors of the changing society during the traumatic events of Partition—they denote how an individual turns his course of life. His act of transformation is the core to unlocking Sidhwa’s magical world. Without analyzing the Ice-Candy-Man, all endeavors to interpret Sidhwa’s messages are futile.

Coda

2018 ◽  
pp. 277-280
Author(s):  
Erika Lorraine Milam
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Ongoing Study ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind

This concluding chapter reflects on the lessons presented by this volume as a whole and considers the ongoing study into the origins of humanity in the post-1970s era. In the decades after, readers have not lost their passion for epic evolutionary dramas in which the entirety of human history unfolds before their eyes. Yet when students today respond to the question “What makes us human?” they are far more likely to invoke neurological facts than paleontological ones. The public battlefield over violence and cooperation has since shifted to new ground in the mind and brain sciences. Despite the apparent polarization of scientists writing about human nature into culture- and biology-oriented positions, the intellectual landscape defined by scientists working on the interaction between culture and biology has continued to flourish.

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