Comment by hackernud3s
6 hours ago
You have this backwards. Thoughts and decisions precede consciousness, the sense of authorship is mostly constructed after the fact. See studies on readiness potentials in motor cortex.
6 hours ago
You have this backwards. Thoughts and decisions precede consciousness, the sense of authorship is mostly constructed after the fact. See studies on readiness potentials in motor cortex.
If you're referring to the Libet experiments, they have been wildly overinterpreted. The conceptual problem with the common interpretation is that detecting a readiness potential prior to a report of a conscious intention to act does not entail the readiness potential is distinct from that conscious intention. The readiness potential may in part constitute one's conscious experience and so cannot be separated from it.
Even if overinterpreted were true, it's silly to claim that consciousness is driving. You don't "decide" to think thoughts. They come to you. They are driving.
One's subconscious drives much of your thoughts, yes. But important decisions are conscious mediated if only because consciousness has veto power. A lack of veto is a tacit endorsement of the action. That is control.
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