SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @06:10AM
Let us suppose that we live in a multiverse. Let us further suppose our conscious mind "observes" the particular universe it freely chooses moment to universe-spawning-moment....yet from within any single universe it will appear that there is no freewill, only determinism.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday July 03 2015, @07:01AM
Yes. Reality is very close to this - only there s no "time" but just "now" - all at once, except through the limited perception of these individual "consciousnesses" - which are really "individuated" only through their subjective, spawned universes.
Quick! Find "now"!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:16AM
Are our apparent consciousnesses all tuned to now as the same moment, relative to each other? Or is my now your future, and her past? What about him? Do we all perceive now in the same relative moment, regardless of the time (150 years ago, three seconds from now, or 8 millennia before present time)?