Précis of the illusion of conscious will.

The feeling of conscious will—the sense that we are the authors of our own actions—may be an interpretation rather than a direct readout of mental or neural causation. Clinical disorders like alien hand syndrome and phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, and spirit possession show that will and action can come apart. A theory of apparent mental causation proposes that conscious will arises when a thought appears just before an action, is consistent with it, and has no salient alternative cause. In this view, the experience of will is a feeling that we think we caused an action, not a veridical report of how the action was produced.

Study at a glance

Abstract

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.