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Title: The Illusion of Conscious Will (Bradford Books)
ISBN: 0262731622
Author:
Daniel M. Wegner
Publicate Date: 2003-09-01
Publish: 2003-09-01
List Price: $21.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $14.12
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $10.00
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1: what if it were true?
The question really matters: what if free will is just an illusion?
I purchased and read this book in 2002. This book helped me consider the question. I set it aside as inconclusive. I worried that it could excuse otherwise irresponsible behavior. I was not interested in evading responsibility.
I was reminded of this book when I read recently the following:
"We have seen that materialist and functionalist theories of the mind are false, precisely because they do not take into account the mind's intrinsic intentionality. By intending a nonexistent state of affairs as a goal for action, an agent is free in the sense of being capable of doing otherwise. The intention also makes the action free, in the sense that the agent could have refrained from doing it, because the decision to act at the initiating step of action is not causally determined. The decision to act and the action that issues from the decision, as we have seen, are not causally determined, because they intend a nonexistent state of affairs that cannot be fully explained or predicted in terms of determining causal factors. If the decision to act and the action issuing from it are free in the strong sense of not being causally determined, then they could have been otherwise. In particular, the decision and action could have been otherwise if the mind in its freedom and causal indeterminism had chosen differently, or, in other words, if the agent had made a different but equally free decision about what to do."
--from page 69 of Dale Jacquette's "Six Philosophical Appetizers."
This excerpt represents my own conclusion on this crucial question: conscious will is NOT an illusion and responsibility IS real.
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2: Pretty thin gruel
I had two problems with this book. First, a stylistic complaint - I found the writing to be much too self-consciously cute. If you're going to write about serious topics, then do so in a serious way. Second, the author's approach consists of constructing one straw man argument after another and then demolishing it. He did not seem to be addressing any serious theoretic perspectives on conscious will, rather he seemed more interested in proving that the idea of conscious will is simply silly on its face and proceeds from there.
A good and extremely important topic, but flawed execution.
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3: A terrible book on an interesting topic
Those interested in the nexus and sometimes disconnect between conscious thought and action are likely to find this book an enormous disappointment. The book is deficient in the cogent reasoning or experimentation it would take to make meaningful headway on this topic.
People who question what they read, will have a very hard time with this book. Page after page, Wegner guides the reader through logical leaps, ignoring alternate explanations and expounding on unsupported points. Most citations are merely to others saying similar sounding things, without actually offering any real support. Often, Wegner seems to do no more than play with different definitions of will.
Wegner appears to be fascinated by the possibility of a flawed recollection/reconstruction of one's own thinking preceding or commensurate with a completed action. He is thrilled to offer explanations for spirit possesion and Ouija board readings. I on the other hand, am more interested in how thoughts and actions lead to other thoughts and actions in everyday life and how conscious thought interacts with other processes to ultimately decide what we do. At the end of the book, I was left with little more than food for thought. Bulky undigested food.
Do conscious thoughts submerge into a subconscious mix before re-emerging into action? Sounds possible. After all, the thoughts cannot remain static in the conscious for the time it takes to act on them, whether that be a second or a year. I'd like to read a book about that, but not one by Wegner.
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4: Excellent step forward an a core issue of cognitive science, but punches get pulled a bit at the end
Along with that, it's an excellent refutation of the illogic and weak knees of someone like Dan Dennett, as well as seeming to scare the hell out of a lot of amateur readers who perhaps should never be allowed near material like this in the first place.
The title speaks for itself. Wegner then looks at the latest findings in modern neuroscience, along with the latest speculation in cognitive philosophy, and offers up his ideas as to how and why this illusion arose.
And here is where I say he is an excellent refutation to Dennett.
It's been roughly two decades since Dennett came out with his claim that we have no Cartesian Central Meaner at the core of our minds, ie. no homunculus or metaphorical little man serving as the central director of our consciousness.
But, but, but, Dennett refuses to come to the logical conclusion that, if we don't have a Central Meaner, we can't have a Central Willer, either. It's not just a lack of goal to go down this road; in his latest books to touch on free will, it's a willful (nice pun, eh?) rejection of this logical conclusion.
Well, Wegner is not afraid to take the plunge, and does so in convincing fashion, although he does pull back somewhat at the end.
That said, and although I gave this a five-star rating, there's plenty to still study on this issue that Wegner (and Dennett, et al) have not tackled.
1. Is there an Unconscious Willer? After all, as Dennett won't tell you, much of the working of our mind is unconscious or subconscious (and I mean no Deepak Chopra New Ageism by that statement). Isn't it possible, at least, that there is a Central Meaner, or several quasi-Central Meaners, in one or more subconscious brain routines? Of course, these quasi-Meaners would generate quasi-Willers.
2. Again, without getting into New Ageism, dimestore Zen, bogus metaphysics, etc., there's room for Wegner to go further down the path of just what "I" is and is not, without not only a Central Meaner but a Central Willer.
3. Handwringing and gnashing of teeth aside from fundamentalist Christians or people in that general direction (the ones who shouldn't be reading books like this in the first place) where do theories of morals (or aesthetics, for that matter) get grounded with no Central Willer as well as no Central Meaner? Here is where Wegner most pulls his punches in this book when he had the chance to meaningfully explore this from a non-willer perspective.
Folks, we've got enough material here for another book. Hopefully, Wegner, or someone else, is in the process of writing it.
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5: Armchair Psychology Meets Corporate Academic Propaganda
Throughout the book I kept getting the distinct impression that Wegner is an armchair warrior. He writes with obvious eloquence, erudition and wit, but it is more like his position is one of marketing rather than experiential substance in the sense that his thoughts are packaged very nicely but lack substance and nutritional quality (so to speak).
Moreover, like so many of the academic faith and other such pseudo priests of scientism, Wegner also impressed (read: disimpressed) me as the type of researcher who, if he found himself in the sanctum santorum of ancient Eleusis with The Mystery in full swing - and was offered a cup filled with the sacred psychoactive brew - that Wegner would not ingest it. He seems rather pellucidly to lack the inner fortitude required for such experiences. Droll but typical.
With that appreciated, his ideas ring hollow - perhaps even wishful, like pharmaceutical propaganda, endeaovoring to pave clear the way for greater corporate/government social control. But then perhaps I am reading too much into the consequences of his train of thought. I may be giving him too much credit. However, it is exactly such seemingly innocuous Ivory Tower evangelism as this that so insidiously infects the minds of people in positions of influence and power to further inflict the world with such dehumanizing ideas as Wegner posits.
Certainly read his book, but handle it with gloves for the meme complex he works so dilligently to impart to his readers is not your friend. It's like his thoughts are adware, or the psychological equivalent of trojans, seeking to rewrite several potent but subtle elements of one's knowledge/beliefs in favor of his own saliently indoctrinated opinions - actually in the favor of his paymasters, to be blunt.
All-in-all Wegner's book is a worthwhile read (although his NLP skills are lacklustre at best). But regardless, if you enjoy the cultish dogma of academia, written from a neatly removed and well sanitized staus quo point of view, then this book is assuredly for you. However, if you find his ideas lacking, and his agenda both plebean and sinsiter in a corporate promotional sort of way, then you will be well advised to look elsewhere for Wegner, in the end, delivers little more than seductively articulated glitz and glam.
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