Consciousness

As we will see (Chapter  16), James
rejected the idea of a persisting
self but still believed that the sense
of effort in both attention and
volition was not an illusion but
the truly causal force of conscious,
personal will (Chapter 7). His inter-
esting use of the passive construc-
tion things are really being decided
(with no one necessarily doing
the deciding) perhaps hints at his
lifelong ambivalence. By the time
he wrote his late work The Varieties
of Religious Experience: A  Study in
Human Nature, his view had changed to one in which renouncing all desire and
choice is what leads to freedom.

He became, not a man with a mind, but a great instinct. His hands

were like creatures, living; his limbs, his body, were all life and

consciousness, subject to no will of his, but living in themselves.

Just as he was, so it seemed the vigorous, wintry stars were strong

also with life. He and they struck with the same pulse of fire, and the

same joy of strength which held the bracken-frond stiff near his eyes

held his own body firm.

(D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, 1913)

An illusion, we should remember, is not something that does not exist, but
something that is not what it seems. So how does it seem to you? Does it seem as
though you have free will, that your decisions are freely made by your conscious
mind, even some of the time? If so, then ask yourself whether this could be an
illusion, and if it is an illusion, you will need to work out how you can possibly
live with that idea (Chapter  18). If it does not seem to you that your actions are
initiated by conscious decisions, then you may read all this with an air of amused
detachment.

Note that we are concerned here with consciousness. The question is not whether
human beings are agents or can make choices. We may safely assume that they
are and can. Humans are living biological creatures that survive, like all other crea-
tures, by having boundaries between themselves and the outside world, and by
taking control over certain aspects of that world. They respond to events, make
intricate plans with many available options, and act accordingly, at least when not
restrained or coerced.

Neither need we doubt that thought, deliberation, and emotions play a part in
decisions. Weighing up possible actions and comparing their likely outcomes is
what intelligent animals are good at, from a cat deciding when to pounce, to a
chimpanzee predicting the likely consequences of challenging a dominant ally.

‘Even robots believe they

have free will, even if

they don’t’

(O’Regan, in Blackmore, 2005,

p. 172)

Spinal cord

Muscle

Movement

Time (s)

Deliberation:

prior intention

Preparation:

readiness potential

Electromyogram:

body movement

Lateralization:

hand-specific

preparation

FIGURE 9.1 • Brain activity preceding a voluntary

action of the right hand. The

frontopolar cortex (shown in

green) forms and deliberates

long-range plans and intentions.

The pre-supplementary motor

area (shown in red) begins the

preparation of the action; together

with other premotor areas, it

generates the readiness potentials

(red trace) that can be recorded

from the scalp. Immediately

before the action takes place, M1

(shown in blue) becomes active.

In later stages of preparation

the contralateral hemisphere is

more active than the ipsilateral

hemisphere; this is reflected in

a lateralised difference between

the readiness potentials that are

recorded over the two hemispheres

of the brain (solid and dotted blue

traces). Finally, neural signals

leave M1 for the spinal cord and

the contralateral hand muscles.

The contraction of the muscles is

measured as an electrical signal,

the electromyogram (Haggard,

2008).