The Illusion of Conscious Will

Rating:
Summary: Readable, Entertaining, and Enlightening!
Review: Daniel Wegner, (Harvard Professor of Psychology) has written a technical book that is readable, entertaining, enlightening. My introduction to Dr. Wegner was in "White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts". His sense of humor combined with his presentation of details put that book on my top ten list.

Since my primary interest is in spirituality, I was anxiously awaiting The Illusion of Conscious Will. In my opinion there is no topic that can be more seductive in the study of spirituality or philosophy. If we think we have "free-will" our thought-life takes one path, if we come down on the side of determinism (or predestination in some circles) our life will follow a different path. The author jumps right into the fray at the very start:

"So here you are reading a book on conscious will. How could this have happened? If [a team of scientific psychologists] had access to all the information they could ever want, the assumption of psychology is that they would uncover the mechanisms that give rise to all of your behavior and so could certainly explain why you picked up this book at this moment.
However, another way to explain the fact of your reading this book is just to say that you decided to pick up the book and begin reading. You consciously willed what you are doing"

A sample of topics cover everything from spirit possession, animals that communicate, hypnosis, morality, and a host of other topics including a brief but interesting insight regarding a confession by the Amazing Kreskin.

Since my background is not in psychology, this became a challenging read but always entertaining. At the very least you will be impressed with how psychologists approach a problem that philosophers and theologians have debated for a thousand years. But if you are like me, this book is destined to change your outlook on life.

Rating:
Summary: The bigger question is unanswered...
Review: I found the book via on online discussion group, as such it is not in a field that i feel particularly able to judge the quality of the work, or where it fits into the overall field.

The book is an extended discussion of the question: "do we consciously cause what happens to us? or as the author puts the question- is the experience of consciously willing an action and the causation of the action by the person's conscious mind the same thing?" pg.3 The book feels like a dialogue between a psychologist and a brain researcher with a philosopher as umpire. The overall structure of the book is particularly good as the author avoids the great temptation to stray from his point while he investigates weird and interesting behaviors, it is to his great credit that the book makes good sense and continues to hammer away at his main point. All the while exploring related avenues of information that might have derailed the study.

The book, at least for me with my limited background in the issues, is rather self authenticating. So i would like to share several very good quotes:

"The real and apparent casual sequences relating thought and action probably do tend to correspond with each other some proportion of the time. After all, people are pretty good information processors when given access to the right information. The occurrence of conscious intention prior to action is often wonderful information because it provides a fine clue as to how things that are on the person' mind might pertain to what the person does. In fact, the mental system that introduces throughts of action to mind and keeps them coordinated with the actions is itself an intriguing mechanism. However, if conscious will is an experience that arises from the interpretation of clues to cognitive casuality, then apparent mental causation is generated by an interpretive process that is fundamentally separate from the mechanistic process of real mental causation. The experience of will can be an indication that mind is causing action, especially if the person is a good self-interpreter, but it is not conclusive." pg 96

"The phenomena of dissociative identity disorder reminds us that our familiar subjective sense of being and doing are open to remarkable transformations. The self is not locked into place somewhere an inch or so behind our eyes, a fixture in the mind. Rather, the agent self is a fabrication put in place by the mechanisms of thought, a virtual agent that has experiences and feels as though it is doing things but that could conceivably be replaced by some other virtual agent that is implemented in the same mind. The experience of consciously willing an action is something that happens in a virtual agent, not in a brain or mind. The sense of being an agent creates our sense of subjective self and identity." pg 263

"Conscious will is the somatic marker of personal authorship, an emotion that authenticates the action's owner as the self. With the feeling of doing an act, we get a conscious sensation of will attached to the action. Often, this marker is quite correct. In many cases, we have intentions that preview our action, and we draw causal inferences linking our thoughts and actions in ways that track quite well our own psychological processes. Our experiences of will, in other words, often do correspond correctly with the empirical will--the actual casual connection between our thought and action. The experience of will then serves to mark the moment and in memory the actions that have been singled out in this way. We know them as ours, as authored by us, because we have felt ourselves doing them. This helps us to tell the difference between things we're doing and all the other things that are happening in and around us. In the melee of actions that occur in daily life, and in the social interaction of self with others, this body-based signature is a highly useful tool. We resonate with what we do, whereas we only notice what otherwise happens or what others have done. Thus, we can keep track of our own contributions without pencils or tally sheets." pg 327

And from the concluding page, 342, " Sometimes how things seem is more important than what they are. This is true in theater, in art, in used car sales, in economics, and -- it now turns out-- in the scientific analysis of conscious will. The fact is, it seems to each of us that we have conscious will . It seems we have selves. It seems we have minds. It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do. Although it is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion, it is a mistake to conclude that the illusory is trivial. On the contrary, the illusions piled atop apparent mental causation are the building blocks of human psychology and social life. It is only with the feeling of conscious will that we can being to solve the problems of knowing who we are as individuals, of discerning what we can and cannot do, and of judging ourselves morally right or wrong for what we have done."

From these you can conclude for yourself the author's position on the question of the book. From them as well you can determine the quality of the writing and the level of the argumentation. For my part, i found the time i spent understanding the author's argument constructive, the examples illuminating and most interesting, despite being a scientific writing it held my interest and was emotionally as well as intellectually fulfilling. I hope you find it likewise.

thanks for reading the review, i would certainly invite recommendation for further reading on this topic. send to [local website]

Rating:
Summary: Fails to critique its main premise
Review: I give this 2 stars rather than 1 only because I have not and will not read beyond the first chapter, so I leave open the possibility that some interesting scientific data might be presented in the remaining chapters. It is, however, a philosophically negligible work, due to this statement on page 2: "We do things, and when we do them, we experience the action in such a way that it seems to flow seamlessly from our consciousness. We feel that *we cause ourselves to behave*." The first sentence is relatively unexceptionable, but only because the phrase "flow seamlessly from our consciousness" is too vacuous to mean much of anything. But the author's italicized claim that the feeling of free will is that of "causing" ourselves to behave is utterly baseless. Causation is originally an idea we form from experiencing things outside ourselves, for the most part nonliving things that collide with one another with predictable consequences. The feeling of free will is so completely different from the feeling attending perception of ordinary cause-effect phenomena, that to apply the word "cause" to the former might well be due to some inept attempt to articulate something distinct from all other experiences, but using words appropriate only to those other experiences. Perhaps the feeling of free will is inherently incapable of articulation. A philosophical writer would at least consider that a scientific study of free will in terms of cause-effect relations is inherently misguided. Wegner, not being a philosopher, does not even seem aware that such a question might be raised. Since just what type of "phenomenon" free will is -- specifically whether or not causality properly applies to it -- lies at the heart of any worthwhile discussion of the topic, Wegner fails even to begin a truly serious examination of the free will issue.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but fails near the end
Review: I loved the way this book started. For example, the evidence that people can feel they are controlling other people's actions is fascinating. The overall theory of how we feel we are willing things is well presented, as is the idea that such a feeling is an illusion. This isn't shocking stuff to some, but to others it will be a huge revelation.

I do have complaints. For the tiny ones first (big one at the end). First, I object to calling the loss of pain and loss of memory during hypnosis examples of increased mental control. By that definition, Alzheimers patients have increased control. What one isn't aware of one isn't aware of and this hardly seems like control.

As far as not being able to avoid thinking of things, it seems to me the explanation is simpler. Words conjure images, but negative words have no images associated with them so when you say "Don't think about a bear" the only word causing an image is bear, and so you think of a bear. Trying to monitor bear thoughts will lead to bear thoughts. Also he says, if you are distracted while you are trying not to do something you will be more likely to do it. I can see that since trying not to do something (like drop a jar) requires action in an opposite direction, i.e. it requires effort. But is this true when you are trying NOT to think of something? If I tried not to think of Wegner's white bear and was then asked to recite the Gettysburg address I strongly suspect I would forget the bear. Not thinking about something, unlike not doing does not require any positive action. Distraction ought to make it easier to forget and he never distinguishes between these and acts as if what is true of behavior is true of thoughts.

But my BIG complaint is the last chapter. He suddenly claims his own theories only explain why we feel will, but he tried to minimize the impact of all this on morality and even started talking about will as a causal force again. He even seemed at times when using the word will to indicate something that wasn't necessarily conscious. This is nonsense. If will isn't conscious it isn't will.

Our thoughts have causal impact on our actions, but then what is the cause of our thoughts? Clearly we don't control these either. They are a sum of what we are, what we have experienced, the way our brains are wired together etc. As far as morality I have to believe that the only thing we can judge is individual bits of behavior. Behavior is moral or not, acceptable or not and some people have a higher propensity to engage in unacceptable behaviors than others--whatever the reasons. As a society we have to judge behavior and engage in activities to modify the behavior of others when it is unacceptable and that is what our jutsice system should attempt. If an individual's behavior remains unacceptable or cannot be modified, we have an obligation to put them where they cannot engage in the behavior.

Wegner is clearly unwilling to give up on the idea that people will their behavior and are thus responbsible in the traditional way for what they do. The idea that we can use "mens rea" a guilty mind to show a person willed their actions seems like a dubious standard to me. A person may not will their behavior but later feels guilty because they realize their behavior is in violation of their own moral code. A person totally lacking a developed moral code (a sociopath, let's say) would never exhibit a guilty mind. Are such folks les guilty? Or less dangerous?

The whole issue of whether mental states should be considered in a legal system should be abandoned as far as I can see. I believe we should judge behavior and then decide what to do with the person engaging in the behavior. What we do should be motivated by our desire to 1) modify the person's behavior and 2) protect innocents. The strategy for each individual will vary depending on their mental abilities and their behavioral history etc and we may often get it wrong.

Wegner's thesis has much bigger implications for our ideas about personal responsibility than he wants to admit and ultimately he is unwilling to really stick with his guns. That was a dissappointment.

But the book has a lot of great stuff to say and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in mind/body questions.

Rating:
Summary: The best kept secret
Review: News flash: there is no such thing as free will. I notice that this fact really irritates a lot of the reviewers here, which makes a good deal of sense. If we accept that there is no free will, we feel our own glory diminished, much as some feel when contemplating the idea that there is no afterlife. A lot of the arguments in favor of free will start with unfounded assumptions that there "must be" some form of free will, because that is the only possible explanation for order in the Universe. Order is really just a manifestation of the laws of physics, and doesn't need intelligent intervention, thank you. When a drop of water freezes into an exquisite snowflake, there is no sentience that guides it. It simply follows the path of least resistance. So too is life, and by extension, intelligence. We feel a bias towards free will because our very sense of self is derived from the ingrained feeling that our thoughts precede our actions. Oh, but do they? As the book rehashes, Libet was one of the first to test this idea emprically, and found that the sequence of electrical events in the brain that accompanied actions always began a noticeable amount of time before the conscious awareness of initiating an action. In the big picture, the vast majority of our actions are mediated by subconscious output, with a trickle of actions being refined by conscious stimuli when we have no experience with a particular situation. It is this subconscious co-opting of thought that enables us to ride a bike, walk, talk, and so on, without the need to consciously consider the steps involved. We take this for granted, but, for example, victims of stroke often find that certain actions they could once do without thinking require considerable attention if not handled automatically. We discount the idea that our actions are mainly subconscious because of the very fact that we don't consciously think about them.
That there is no free will is also an elegant explanation for the obvious lack of free will that we can witness in ourselves and others every day. How often do addicts of all kinds (food, drugs, gambling) explain that they cannot control their actions? Or what about spouses who cheat, drawn up in the "heat of the moment"? The temporary insanity plea? Tourette's syndrome? Obsessive-compulsive actions? Our own nightly dream worlds? People are willing to accept that they are not in control of many aspects of their behavior, but fail to make the obvious leap that they are indeed not in control of any of it. Having done something that they did not want to do, people then expose another aspect of the brain's process of illusory control by rationalizing their actions ("Another beer won't kill me","my spouse drove me to cheating","biting my fingernails kills the time"). This is the brain tipping its hand to the cards it's playing. When we see this in an extreme form, we call it a pathology (alcoholism, OCD). When we experience it in more mundane ways, we call it our thought process.
The book spends a lot of time on social aspects of will as well. We're much more likely to do certain things in groups, as we surrender some of our control to that of the group. An obvious example of this are religious ceremonies. People can go into trancelike, convulsive states when they are "slain in the spirit" of God, which they attribute to outside agencies. No one ever questions, however, why one is never visited by God while shopping at Radio Shack.
All that said, the illusion of will has a purpose. It may be an illusion, but it's still an effective and convincing one. While we may not really have free will, we still experience it all the same, and there is no reason that we should behave any differently knowing this. Beyond a dimunition of our sense of selves that accompanies the loss of will, I think that another reflexive disgust people feel about the concept stems from the percieved lack of responsibility that it implies. If I'm not in control, why blame me for what I do? It doesn't really work that way, however. Free will or no, social pressures will still work to modify behavior in individuals. Indeed, our existing penal system works as it does because it shapes the development of our subconscious minds. More simply, we don't even have the free will to act as if we have no free will.
So after all this, the issue is moot. It doesn't matter how we work, just that we do. Perhaps the most useful application of this knowledge will be in shaping our approach to altering bad behaviors. Knowing that we have no will, we can predict our more addictive and reflexive behaviors more accurately. Practial applications would be avoiding situations in which we might cave in to temptations. By taking action before we lose our apparent will, we co-opt the problems associated with it, and those insights are easily worth the price of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Will as a feeling
Review: The essential point here is that `conscious will', while quite real, is other than it seems to us to be. In short, it is a passive, rather than an active phenomenon. It is an emotion that signals ownership of action to the self, and even at this is it a fallible indicator. Nonetheless it is critical for keeping track of what we have done, as opposed to what happens to or around us. Conscious will is an indicator that `we' - that is, our thoughts or minds - have caused ourselves to take an action. At this it is a generally reliable, though by no means infallible, indicator. But it is not an indication, as it would seem to be, that our will actually caused the action. Rather, we merely experience it that way so we remember taking the action. We never actually cause anything via our will. At best, the thoughts in our minds are the causes of actions, and the sense of will is generated alongside them so we sense the ownership of the action. <PWhile the explanation and empirical demonstration of this idea is fascinating, and consumes most of the book, it cries out for a more complete accounting of the consequences such a theory, if true, would have on our sense of ourselves, morality, religion and personal responsibility. These issues feel shoehorned into the last few pages of the work, and come across as being mere inconveniences, rather than as the central issues they are. Issues of moral responsibility especially seem `danced around' and not fully addressed. If even our most willful actions are in fact determined outcomes of neuro-computational systems beyond our control, then the question of responsibly would seem to need serious revision. Or perhaps the question then becomes just what is responsible. If thoughts in the mind did cause the action, then is it appropriate to hold the person, that is, the self, responsible for the action?

This quandry highlights perhaps the most curious aspect of the book: is its unproblematic approach to the self. Despite the radical revision (read destruction) of free will, the common-sense idea of self is rarely if ever addressed as needing any explanation. This is strange when one considers that the most salient feature of self is usually taken to be will. But if will is a passive illusion, what of the self which experiences it? Moreover, Wegner seems to treat self as sometimes equivalent to mind, and sometimes a detached observer of the mind's actions. ..

Rating:
Summary: Frightening
Review: This book is frightening, and I am quite surprised (and doubting) about the reviews I've read so far. Surely the news that we do nothing out of our conscious (let alone free) will is a chilling idea. Am I to blame for my actions, am I to praise for my achievements? Well, according to Wegner: forget it!
Now I wonder why people (ie. reviewers) have to pretend to be brave in face of such a frightening idea. Yet there is no critical review here (the only ones are complaining that Wegner may be to soft in the end). Now, if you think it is nice to look in your grandparent's faces and know that you know something they don't know: namely that all their lives has been based on a grand illusion, then go ahead and enjoy. I for my part think this is chilling news. I only want to add that Wegner's view is not the standard view and that there are some at least equally respected researchers who come to very different conclusions. I write this in case that some of those incredibly brave people who applaud their next-to-non-existence may want to have second thoughts and look for more information. There is also a special issue of behavioral brain sciences coming in the next months which may offer a more balanced view of human nature and our conscious will.

Rating:
Summary: Workmanly, helpful step forward on a central question
Review: Wegner makes an interesting step forward in the free will/determinism debate. He argues that "conscious will" is indeed an important EXPERIENCE, which serves vital purposes; but he denies that ACTS of conscious will CAUSE the actions we believe them to cause. "Will" is not how I bring about the things I do, but perceiving and understanding what I do--though the "I" is mostly unconscious, and the causes of actions more or less entirely so.

Thus, Wegner does NOT deny that we are the authors of our own actions or that thoughts cause actions; but he denies that "will" is among the causally effective psychological events. "Will" is a way of keeping track of which actions are caused by me--by my intentions, beliefs, desires, and so forth. It is an indicator, and a vitally important one, but not more than that.

I will be surprised if this this theory turns out to be ultimately correct, mostly because Wegner seems to lack an adequate general theory of consciousness and its functions within which to house and understand will. Consciousness did not arise for no reason--any trait that occurs at a rate above chance must be naturally selected, hence evolutionarily important, and consciousness occurs in about 100% of humans and apparently huge numbers of other animal species. Consciousness could turn out to be just sort of a matter of taste, effectively useless, like the peacock's tail. But that seems unlikely, since consciousness seems to be much more universal that shiny big tails. Conscious will needs to be understood as part of consciousness, and very good science--theoretical and experiemtnal--demonstrates that consciousness has causal efficacy. (See, for instance, Bernard J. Baars' nice intro to "consciousness science" in his book, "In the Theater of Conscousness.")

That said, the feeling of willing remains distinct from other elements of consciousness--simply because each type of mental content is distinct from each other type--and thus much needs to be understood about its peculiar traits and function. Wegner certainly points in intriguing directions.

Two disappointment: First, and fairly trivial, Wegner knows very well that his theory is very, very far from being established, or even being the leading contender, and he often says so--e.g., that the evidence is "consistent with" the theory, or "suggests" the theory, or that the theory "would help" undertand various things. But being human, he can't avoid slipping into assuming and talking as though his theory is simply right--sometimes calling it an "assumption" and a "realization" in the same paragraph! I found the latter annoying.

More significant, Wegner sidesteps one central issue: Why does "will" feel free? We all know that we sometimes initate actions without feeling free to do otherwise--whenever "curiousity gets the better" of you, for instance. Other times we experience ourselves as free to will one thing or the other. Saying that will is perception of my causing my own acts does not explain the difference--and that difference is one of the main things the free will/determinism debate is about.

Rating:
Summary: Frightening
Review: Wegner postulates our belief in complete control of our voluntary actions is an illusion. Who, then, is in control of our thoughts and behaviour? In an ideal scientific portrayal of how our minds work all the relevant factors might be analysed in detail and reassembled to duplicate the processes leading to a particular action. That, he argues, isn't a practical solution to understanding. "Free will", debated by religions, science, philosophy and law, is too simplistic a concept in Wegner's view. There are too many forces impinging on our minds, affecting our behaviour and outlook, to endorse our commonly held view of how much we control we actually exercise. In a well written account of how these outside forces are received and acted on, Wegner presents an abundance of examples. His easygoing style makes this book a pleasurable read.

Anyone seeking simple concepts will not find this book fulfilling. There are many facets to examine in determining how our minds work. Simple answers and concepts have no place here. On the surface, his examples of outside forces may seem bizarre to the newcomer to these ideas. The famous horse, Clever Hans, who fooled many for years, may seem out of place in a study of human will. How can animal actions be meaningful in such a treatise? The example points up, however, how subtle the forces affecting our thoughts and actions can be. Human brain malfunctions also show the distinction between what we view as "normal" and "aberrant" behaviour. In examining some of these conditions, Wegner leads us through spirit mediums, Oujia Boards, "channeling", and hypnotism. It seems like a journey through a fantasy land, but each example makes a telling point in supporting his case that the idea that our actions remain within our control is illusory.

None of this is to suggest, he argues finally, that we have no influence on what we do. He merely wants to make us aware of those other forces. Some are easily understood, but easily overlooked - social forces are the chief example. "Have another piece of pie" repeated until we partake, seemingly "against our will". Not telling off the boss when she's been foolish. The examples are common and frequent, Wegner notes, but we don't view them as modifying our concept of "free will" as we should. In conclusion, Wegner urges that the idea of conscious will is a valid ideal. We should aim to achieve it, even if it's not universally attainable. While our knowledge of how conscious of ourselves we truly requires further explanation, Wegner's summary of will gives us another step along that journey. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Rating:
Summary: a truly amazing and true idea .
Review: wegner's book and idea of determinism is truly amazing and of
course true as well . everything , simply everything is simply
happening without us , human beings , being able to change it .
wegner's book is a must for anyone who is interested to
understand himself better and hopefully live in harmony .