The illusion of conscious will /
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| Author / Creator: | Wegner, Daniel M., 1948- |
|---|---|
| Imprint: | Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2002. |
| Description: | xi, 405 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | Print Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/4652565 |
Table of Contents:
- Preface
- 1. The Illusion
- It usually seems that we consciously will our voluntary actions, but this is an illusion.
- 2. Brain and Body
- Conscious will arises from processes that are psychologically and anatomically distinct from the processes whereby mind creates action.
- 3. The Experience of Will
- The experience of conscious will arises when we infer that our conscious intention has caused our voluntary action, although both intention and action are themselves caused by mental processes that do not feel willed.
- 4. An Analysis of Automatism
- The experience of will can be reduced to very low levels under certain conditions, even for actions that are voluntary, purposive, and complex-and what remains is automatism.
- 5. Protecting the Illusion
- The illusion of will is so compelling that it can prompt the belief that acts were intended when they could not have been. It is as though people aspire to be ideal agents who know all their actions in advance.
- 6. Action Projection
- The authorship of one's own action can be lost, projected away from self to other people or groups or even animals.
- 7. Virtual Agency
- When people project action to imaginary agents, they create virtual agents, apparent sources of their own action. This process underlies spirit possession and dissociative identity disorder as well as the formation of the agent self.
- 8. Hypnosis and Will
- In hypnosis the person experiences a loss of conscious will. This loss accompanies an apparent transfer of control to someone else, along with the creation of some exceptional forms of control over the self.
- 9. The Mind's Compass
- Although the experience of conscious will is not evidence of mental causation, it does signal personal authorship of action to the individual and so influences both the sense of achievement and the acceptance of moral responsibility.
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
