Consciousness — the internal dialogue that seems to govern one's thoughts and actions — is far less powerful than people believe, serving as a passive conduit rather than an active force that exerts control, according to a new theory proposed by an SF State researcher. Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella.
Morsella and his coauthors' groundbreaking theory, published online on June 22 by the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self.
According to Morsella's framework, the "free will" that people typically attribute to their conscious mind — the idea that our consciousness, as a "decider," guides us to a course of action — does not exist. Instead, consciousness only relays information to control "voluntary" action, or goal-oriented movement involving the skeletal muscle system.
http://scienceblog.com/79096/theory-consciousness-free/
Wonder if Edward Bernays would agree with this assessment. Enjoyed watching the very intriguing documentary, The Century of the Self a 2002 British television documentary series by Adam Curtis. It focuses on how the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Edward Bernays influenced the way corporations and governments have analyzed, dealt with, and controlled people.
You can see the documentary: The Century of the Self | Happiness Machines | Episode 1
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Friday July 03 2015, @04:57AM
Exactly, it's pretty trivial and uninteresting to explain consciousness without free will, the so called "along for the ride" hypothesis.
Explaining free will (even a little of it) is really tricky, but it's probably a good path to an integrated scientific theory of consciousness.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 03 2015, @05:07AM
Trivial, but in the end it is just a matter of what difference does it make. So right now I decide to type "this", and maybe I meant to do that, or I had to do it, because of . . . now here is where things get interesting! Previous causality? Future retro-causality? Or just because, as Neo said, "I choose to." No way to distinguish, so we might as well go with the model that makes Republicans happy what with "personal responsibility" and all, and hang the fucking bankers by the neck until they are dead. I was a matter of subprime bundling free-will. Bastards.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday July 03 2015, @06:36AM
You choose to, but you have no other course of action but to choose to.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 03 2015, @07:47AM
Yeah, that was what I was saying. But what if I chose differently? Ah, you say, but I could not! But I already have! So there! ^ NYour universe is no longer mine, and I bid you adieu, for as long as I can. Tea, then, at Two O'Clock? It seems to be the only constant.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 03 2015, @01:40PM
Perhaps your choice were constructed by the circumstances in your current moment of your life. So there was a boundary function as to which choices that could be made. It seems not so but in reality it was so. Otoh, your earlier choices may have put you in that situation which is were a more true free will perhaps is at play albeit in smaller steps.