comments on “the illusion of conscious will” by strongdstrong.docVIP

Comments on “The Illusion of Conscious Will” by Daniel. M. Wegner. [M.I.T. Press, 2002] [Wegner is Professor of Psychology at Harvard] Wegner’s begins Chapter 1 with the statement: “It usually seems that we consciously will our voluntary actions, but this is an illusion.” That assertion appears to be a clear statement of what Wegner intends to demonstrate. The questions in need of addressing are: Does the empirical evidence cited by Wegner entail that a person’s stream of consciousness cannot causally influence that person’s physical actions? Do Wegner’s arguments, or the empirical evidence upon which they are based, create any difficulties for the von Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory, which provides a mechanism that allows a person’s “experiences of conscious willing” to influence that person’s physical actions? The answers to these two questions are ‘No’ and ‘No.’ One of Wegner’s main arguments is based on his Theory of Apparent Mental Causation, which says: “People experience conscious will when they interpret their own thought as the cause of their action.” Granting that this is true we may ask: Does this effect entail, or strongly support, the conclusion that conscious will is non-efficacious? The answer is ‘No.’ Only if experiences ARE efficacious is there a good reason for the Theory of Apparent Mental Causation to hold! If our experiences do causally influence our actions in the way that they seem to do then these experiences are surely needed for successful living. But how do we learn how to USE this power of our conscious will to affect our actions? Look at any healthy alert infant and you see the answer: incessant struggle to find out ‘which effort does what.’ Success in this venture requires the capacity to recognize those relationships between efforts and feedbacks that could be consequences of those efforts. The validity of the Theory of Apparent Mental Causation has, therefore, positive survival value IF the experience of conscious will ac