Summary of Daniel M. Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The fact that you are reading this book is an example of your will. You decided to read this book and begin reading. You consciously willed what you are doing. You have a profound sense that you consciously will much of what you do, and you experience yourself willing your actions many times a day.

#2 The idea of conscious will and the idea of psychological mechanisms have never been properly reconciled. The mechanistic approach is the explanation preferred for scientific purposes, but the person's experience of conscious will is important to them and must be understood scientifically as well.

#3 Conscious will is often understood in two major ways. It is commonly referred to as an experience, when we perform an action and feel as if we are willing that action. However, it is also a causal force between our minds and our actions.

#4 The experience of will is essential for the occurrence of consciously willed action. It is not always present when actions appear to be willed, and it can be absent altogether in cases of alien hand syndrome, in which a person experiences one hand as operating with a mind of its own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822523272

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Insights on Daniel M. Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The fact that you are reading this book is an example of your will. You decided to read this book and begin reading. You consciously willed what you are doing. You have a profound sense that you consciously will much of what you do, and you experience yourself willing your actions many times a day.

#2

The idea of conscious will and the idea of psychological mechanisms have never been properly reconciled. The mechanistic approach is the explanation preferred for scientific purposes, but the person's experience of conscious will is important to them and must be understood scientifically as well.

#3

Conscious will is often understood in two major ways. It is commonly referred to as an experience, when we perform an action and feel as if we are willing that action. However, it is also a causal force between our minds and our actions.

#4

The experience of will is essential for the occurrence of consciously willed action. It is not always present when actions appear to be willed, and it can be absent altogether in cases of alien hand syndrome, in which a person experiences one hand as operating with a mind of its own.

#5

The experience of will can be undermined by brain damage, hypnosis, and other means. It can be manipulated in a voluntary action.

#6

The absence of experience of will is another example of how our knowledge of the action and our expectations of it are not enough to move the action into the consciously willed category. It must feel as though you did it, and even then, it doesn’t feel like you willed it.

#7

There is a distinction between action and the sense of acting willfully. The upper left quadrant shows the expected correspondence of action and the feeling of doing, when we do something and feel also that we are doing it. The lower right quadrant is when we are not doing anything and feel we are not.

#8

The illusion of control is acute in our interactions with machines, as when we don’t know whether our push of an elevator button or a Coke machine selection lever has done anything yet sense that it has. We experience the illusion when we roll dice or flip coins in a certain way, hoping that we will be able to influence the outcome.

#9

The definition of will as an experience means that we are likely to experience conscious will in ourselves because we are privy to our own experiences. We have a difficult time appreciating will in others, and we cannot understand the experience of will in creatures with a conscious mind.

#10

The will is not only an experience, but also a force. It is tempting to think that the experience of will is a direct perception of the force of will. However, the will is an explanatory entity of the first order. It explains lots of things, but nothing explains it.

#11

The concept of will power is not useless, but it must be used carefully. It must be understood that the will is a force residing in a person, but it cannot be a property of their conscious intention. The will is not a cause of their actions, but an event that is always accompanied by a constant conjunction between the person’s self-reported conscious thought and their action.

#12

The experience of will is simply a feeling that occurs to a person. It is to action as the experience of pain is to the bodily changes that result from painful stimulation. The person’s feeling of will is not the same as the degree of twist applied to a person’s arm.

#13

The experience of will is so powerful that it often overrides any amount of scientific