An issue for Wegner’s theory about the conscious will: the Readiness Potential does not conclusively represent preparation for an action
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-6746.2017.3.30195Palabras clave:
conscious will, Readiness Potential, action, experience.Resumen
The role of consciousness in the production of actions has received much attention from philosophy and neuroscience. Wegner (2002) claims that what he calls the conscious will plays no role in the causal production of human actions, and that it is just an illusion. I will argue that Wegner’s claim is mistaken, because his defense of the alleged illusion rests on how he conceives of what the Readiness Potential (RP) represents in a key experiment – Libet’s experiment – and this conception is mistaken. Therefore, Wegner has not offered a convincing reason to believe that humans are deluded about the way they produce their actions.
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