One thing that fascinates me is the contrast between implicit (or un/sub/pre-conscious cognition of which we are unaware) and explicit cognition (the thoughts that we are actually aware of having), and the relationship between these two types of cognition to our behaviour and how we actually live our lives. I’ve been reading a really fascinating book by Dan Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard, called The Illusion of Conscious Will. I’m not through reading the book yet (actually, I’m only on chapter 3!), but some of the quotes were fascinating and I thought I would share them here. [I’ve added some commentary of my own–BPZ]
People have a tendency to think that the cause for any voluntary action is their consciously willing the action, but this is not the case. The book’s key point is that the thing that we call “conscious will” which drives our actions and behaviour, is actually not a causal force, but “an illusion”. Wegner points out that what we know as “conscious will” – the apparent conscious decision that we make to do or engage in something – is psychologically and biologically distinct from how the mind actually creates action. For example, it is scientifically well documented that people’s voluntary action first begins with brain activity, then the conscious awareness of the will, then action–meaning that the conscious will followed, not preceded, the brain activity that prompted action.
“It usually seems that we consciously will our voluntary actions, but this is an illusion.” (p. 1)
“One might assume that the experience of consciously willing an action and the causation of the action by the person’s conscious mind are the same thing. As it turns out, however, they are entirely distinct, and the tendency to confuse them is the source of the illusion of conscious will that this book is about.” (p. 3)
“Will is a feeling. David Hume […] proposed to define the will in this way, as “nothing but the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion for our body, or new perception of our mind” (1739, p. 399).” (p. 3)
“Apparently, we cannot yet trace the experience of wil to any particular signal in the nervous system–from brain to body, or from body to brain […] It appears that the experience of will occurs through a system that presents the idea of a volntary action to consciousness and also produces the action. The idea can occur just in advance of the action, as when people are allowed to act a lib, or the idea may come to mind just after the action, as when people are prompted to act rapidly. People get the experience of will primarily when the idea of acting occurs to them before they act.” (p. 60)
So why do people have this experience of the conscious will? Wegner draws from research about how people make inferences about cause an effect to answer this question. Basically, people will infer causality when things happen within a specific window of time. For example, if you hit a billiard ball and it moves to hit another billiard ball just before the second ball moved, you would probably infer that ball 1 caused ball 2 to move. But if ball 2 moved before ball 1 touched it, or if there was movement long after the two billiard balls touched, then you might not infer that ball 1 caused ball 2 to move. People also seem to infer causality when the effect resembles its (perceived) cause. For example, if you came to my house for dinner and the food was terrible, and you also knew that I was a bad cook, you might infer that I made dinner. (For the record, I’m a relatively good cook!)
“The unique human convenience of conscious thoughts that preview our actions gives us the privilege of feeling we willfully cause what we do. In fact, however, unconscious and inscrutable mechanisms create both conscious thought about action and the action, and also produce the sense of will we experience by perceiving the thought as cause of the action. So, while our thoughts may have deep, important, and unconscious causal connections to our actions, the experience of conscious will arises from a process that interprets these connections, not from the connections themselves.” (p. 98)
Ethics, philosophy and religion put a premium on the conscious will as a determinant of personal responsibility–if you didn’t consciously will something, you couldn’t be held (entirely) responsible. Wegner’s book and these findings about the illusion of conscious will may have immense bearings on what we know about the things that we consider part of our everyday lives. The Bible also talks a lot about making our thoughts captive to Christ (e.g., 2 Cor 10:5), assuming that conscious thought is the cause for our behavour. I can’t count the number of times I’ve consciously willed myself to not think about something, only to find ourselves thinking about the same thing 3 seconds later. I’ve also lost count of the number of times I’ve consciously willed myself to not do something, but do it anyway (e.g., Romans 7). I’ll leave you with a few things to ponder: There’s a disconnect between our conscious will and action. If we don’t consciously will our actions, are we still responsible for them? How does this influence our understanding of our sin(s)? More importantly, how does this influence our understanding of grace-enabled action and transformation?
COMMENTS
6 responses to “The Illusion of Conscious Will (Quotes from Ch. 1)”
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Hey Bonnie,
This is some pretty interesting (and heady) stuff. I would love to hear your thoughts on these quotes. Basically, I need help understanding them:)
Thanks,
Sean
Good stuff Bonnie. I think the study of cognition is extremely illuminating regarding our ability to see how we measure up to the law. I am reading a book about cognitavie dissonance and it makes me realize how impotent we are at judging ourselves accurately.
Alex
I’m happy to see that psychology-types like Wegner have been delving into this issue in the last few years.
On the theological front, Luther and Edwards obliterate notions of a will free to do anything but what it wants to do, and in that sense, we could say it is entirely bound/determined.
However, as with Laplace’s idea of a predictable/deterministic physical universe (guessing 18th century, but can’t remember), I feel that pressed too far, Wegner runs the risk of undermining the concept of love or loving, (not to mention the basis of civil justice required in every society).
I wonder how his argument holds up in the face of a murder trial or child molestation case? Would Wegner be forced to say that a jury would be wrong to convict the perpetrator since neural pathways determine what we think of as willing? If all decisions are made by the unconscious mind, what is the point of the sense of ‘willing’? Is God playing a trick on us? 😉 Enlighten me; I hope I am misreading his premise.
Believe it or not I just spent 30 minutes updating the post and providing some commentary, but the internet crashed and the draft didn’t get saved. I’ll try to update it later in the day with my commentary and quotes that aren’t as dense.
Hey Dylan, my brother is going to be in Edinburgh in the fall doing a semester abroad. He’s a philosophy major 🙂
In response to your question though, one of the things I found not as satisfying is the final chapter–basically, Wegner spends a lot of time proving that the conscious will is an illusion, but his final chapter is all about the value of the conscious will and the importance of human intentionality and responsibility. He didn’t quite follow through with his argument (which, I believe, would probably lead to the conclusion you drew…but would anyone dare to actually go there??!?) You’ll be glad to know that Wegner (to my dismay theoretically, but probably to all our relief) didn’t go that far 🙂
Here are my thoughts in response:
From my limited limited of philosophy, which (I think) is much more theoretical than practical, what we understand of responsibility and morality rests on the premise that there exists a will, that the will causes action, and that without this will, action is “involuntary”. And people cannot be responsible for something that is involuntary. If the conscious will is an illusion, then murderers and child molesters wouldn’t be responsible since it would be brain activity and other internal and external influences that caused that action, rather than the person’s own will.
However, my understand of the law is that it’s much more practical. (Thanks Emily Cox for helping me with this last week!) My understanding is criminal cases are judged on mens rea (the perpetrator’s purpose, will, etc.), actus rea (the action that the perpetrator took), and social harm. The illusion of conscious will might buy you wiggle room on mens rea, but not on the others. So a molester can appeal that he did not “do it”, that his brain waves did it, but on actus rea the action was took by the person and on social harm there is a lot of harm–and I suppose legally he would be found guilty even if he can wiggle his way out of mens rea. Much more practical than a purely philosophical approach.
Lastly, one of Wegner’s own points: even though conscious will is illusory, it doesn’t mean it’s not useful. We acquire sense of personhood, identity, and sense of agency, all of which are necessary for psychological health and well-being, through the perception of ourselves as conscious, will-ful agents. Doing away with the concept of the conscious will together actually leads to all sorts of problems. So again, from a practical perspective, Wegner says that even if it’s an illusion it’s better to have it. (I happen to agree with him.) Also, it’s so hard wired to our understanding of the world that to do away with it would be getting rid of our “human-ness”. However, my sense is that Wegner is trying to caution people against having an overly simplistic view of the human will, so in my book, he gets points for highlighting problems with with what is generally understood as conscious will.
Hey Bonnie,
Thanks so much for clarifying the value of Wegner’s thought. I forgot about mens/actus re years ago–and bless you for reminding us–that is such a subtle, but crucial point in this argument. Yet Wegner cannot overlook the fact that motive is the principal factor in determining the charge itself (for example, premeditation is the prerequisite for ‘murder 1’, whereas manslaughter may involve something reckless/careless, but not intentional, per se).
On another note, as you know, even good theologians would recognize that depravity does not mean that the will is as wicked as the devil is red, but that it is forever warped in a non-Christlike fashion. *Curvatus in se* So for the Christian, could we say that some of what we think of as ‘conscious willing’ IS nevertheless tainted on a more subconscious level by that event in the Garden of Eden?
It seems to me that Wegner’s book begs a further question for Law/Gospel…if we believe in the will as revealed through spontaneous action (PZ often uses K. Holl to argue this point), what does it mean to preach enabling words of grace to that will (conscious or not)? The idea seems to be that the shackled will can be loosed once the ‘oughts’ are replaced with the preaching of the cross. The paradigm seems to hold out the possibility of a slightly reformed subconscious will. In other words, the Gospel actually transforms part of the person in such a way that they will occasionally have a different response (aka bearing good fruit because the roots have been transplanted).
Tell your brother to contact me/us if he has questions or needs anything (a ride from the airport, etc).