The Illusion of Conscious Will

This book seeks to make the case that the experience of conscious will, although seeming to cause our actions, does not. The argument presented in doing this is broad-ranging, covering topics in philosophy, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, child development, and social psychology. Like his Harvard Colleague Daniel Gilbert, Daniel Wegner has the dual gifts of being a gifted researcher and gifted writer. There is insufficient space in a brief review to outline all the arguments raised by this book, or all the topics covered. The good ideas come thick and fast, but are presented with sufficient clarity that they should be understandable to most intelligent readers, even those without an extensive background in psychology or philosophy. On top of his writing and research, Wegner's ability to theorize from the evidence and consider evidence in light of theory is outstanding. A great deal of the research Wegner reports in this book is his own. In addition, he does a masterful job of scouring current and historical literature for interesting examples to support his case. There are some good concise summaries of the arguments made in this book in academic psychology articles by Wegner. Some of which can be downloaded from his homepage: these may provide a good start if you are presently unsure about buying the book. I think people who enjoy Daniel Dennett's philosophical writings on consciousness would enjoy this book.

News flash: there is no such thing as free will. I notice that this fact really irritates a lot of the reviewers here, which makes a good deal of sense. If we accept that there is no free will, we feel our own glory diminished, much as some feel when contemplating the idea that there is no afterlife. A lot of the arguments in favor of free will start with unfounded assumptions that there "must be" some form of free will, because that is the only possible explanation for order in the Universe. Order is really just a manifestation of the laws of physics, and doesn't need intelligent intervention, thank you. When a drop of water freezes into an exquisite snowflake, there is no sentience that guides it. It simply follows the path of least resistance. So too is life, and by extension, intelligence. We feel a bias towards free will because our very sense of self is derived from the ingrained feeling that our thoughts precede our actions. Oh, but do they? As the book rehashes, Libet was one of the first to test this idea emprically, and found that the sequence of electrical events in the brain that accompanied actions always began a noticeable amount of time before the conscious awareness of initiating an action. In the big picture, the vast majority of our actions are mediated by subconscious output, with a trickle of actions being refined by conscious stimuli when we have no experience with a particular situation. It is this subconscious co-opting of thought that enables us to ride a bike, walk, talk, and so on, without the need to consciously consider the steps involved. We take this for granted, but, for example, victims of stroke often find that certain actions they could once do without thinking require considerable attention if not handled automatically. We discount the idea that our actions are mainly subconscious because of the very fact that we don't consciously think about them. That there is no free will is also an elegant explanation for the obvious lack of free will that we can witness in ourselves and others every day. How often do addicts of all kinds (food, drugs, gambling) explain that they cannot control their actions? Or what about spouses who cheat, drawn up in the "heat of the moment"? The temporary insanity plea? Tourette's syndrome? Obsessive-compulsive actions? Our own nightly dream worlds? People are willing to accept that they are not in control of many aspects of their behavior, but fail to make the obvious leap that they are indeed not in control of any of it. Having done something that they did not want to do, people then expose another aspect of the brain's process of illusory control by rationalizing their actions ("Another beer won't kill me","my spouse drove me to cheating","biting my fingernails kills the time"). This is the brain tipping its hand to the cards it's playing. When we see this in an extreme form, we call it a pathology (alcoholism, OCD). When we experience it in more mundane ways, we call it our thought p

A fascinating empirical account of how the conscious will works. Psychological theories are rarely based on so much experimental evidence. This could very well change your views on what it means to say that "you" are in control of your mind. However, the final impact of his theory is very subtle: your mind does create an "illusion" of conscious will, so as to keep track of your feelings and reactions and keep them in order. So it does make sense, in a very real way, to talk about "exercising" will, or to "strengthen" your will. It affirms and deepens your sensation of "will", instead of dismissing it. A very subtle and provocative work.

Daniel Wegner, (Harvard Professor of Psychology) has written a technical book that is readable, entertaining, enlightening. My introduction to Dr. Wegner was in "White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts". His sense of humor combined with his presentation of details put that book on my top ten list. Since my primary interest is in spirituality, I was anxiously awaiting The Illusion of Conscious Will. In my opinion there is no topic that can be more seductive in the study of spirituality or philosophy. If we think we have "free-will" our thought-life takes one path, if we come down on the side of determinism (or predestination in some circles) our life will follow a different path. The author jumps right into the fray at the very start: "So here you are reading a book on conscious will. How could this have happened? If [a team of scientific psychologists] had access to all the information they could ever want, the assumption of psychology is that they would uncover the mechanisms that give rise to all of your behavior and so could certainly explain why you picked up this book at this moment. However, another way to explain the fact of your reading this book is just to say that you decided to pick up the book and begin reading. You consciously willed what you are doing" A sample of topics cover everything from spirit possession, animals that communicate, hypnosis, morality, and a host of other topics including a brief but interesting insight regarding a confession by the Amazing Kreskin. Since my background is not in psychology, this became a challenging read but always entertaining. At the very least you will be impressed with how psychologists approach a problem that philosophers and theologians have debated for a thousand years. But if you are like me, this book is destined to change your outlook on life.

The Illusion of Conscious Will will radically change your view of human behavior, including your own. It manages to controvert the most basic of our intuitive assumptions about our actions and decisions -- that they are governed by our conscious thought processes. Wegner presents ample anecdotal and scientific evidence to suggest that what we call consciousness is just a byproduct of our underlying, unconscious decision making process. And, what is more, he does so with an entertaining and readily accessible writing style. A great read for anyone who is interested in learning why they do what they do!