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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: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @02:12AM
This depends entirely on the definition of "free will". There are numerous definitions that are in popular use. Besides, the idea that free will doesn't exist as many people understand the term is not new.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @02:37AM
See "Society of Mind" by Marvin Minsky. Reviews,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind [wikipedia.org]
http://web.media.mit.edu/~push/ExaminingSOM.html [mit.edu]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GDX on Friday July 03 2015, @02:41AM
It depends not only in the definition of "free will", it also depends of what it is and how it works the "consciousness". It's also possible that what we view as consciousness is nothing more than an after process of what our true "conscious mind" do.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GoonDu on Friday July 03 2015, @03:08AM
>an after process of what our true "conscious mind" do.
Which begs the question of what is the exact definition of this 'true conscious mind'? It reeks of 'it's consciousness all the way down'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:14PM
Well I suppose you could define "free will" to mean "baked beans on toast" if you wanted to, but that wouldn't be a useful definition. Now for any meaningful definition of "free will", I don't think it really exists.
Care to provide your definition of "free will"?