AUT: Against personal responsibility

[andrew robinson <ldxar1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Since Tahir and Harald have rather "classical" tastes
in what counts as "science", they ought to pay
attention to this article, which proves my point about
personal responsibility and intent, in a language they
can perhaps understand better than my usual kind of
evidence and argument.

Tahir goes so far as to accuse me of "contempt for
science".  This should shut him up on that count.  And
Harald thinks I kneejerk against rightist "moralism"
by opposing responsibility.  This shows that what I
say has an empirical basis, separate from any
political use to which I put it.

Andy

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http://www.tjonard.ws/latency.html

Tom Jonard's Latency of Consciousness Page
The term "latency of consciousness" refers to the fact
that contrary to what we believe consciousness of
voluntary actions follows rather than precedes these
actions.

In the 1970's neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet
discovered that there was a gap between when a
subject's brain waves indicated he was going to move
his finger and when the subject reported he was
conscious of the decision to move his finger.  In
another experiment subjects whose cortex was
stimulated during brain surgery reported an associated
sensation only after a similar delay.  (Patient's are
usually awake during such surgery because verbal
feedback from such stimulation helps the surgeon map
the individual's cortex.)  The neural events that
precede consciousness do so by about 1/3 second.

One of the central issues of the Philosophy of Mind
before these neurophysiological observations was how
the Mind (which was thought to be immaterial) causes a
physical effect (whether the movement of a limb or the
firing of a neuron which moves a limb).  The observed
Latency of Consciousness turns this question on its
head.  The last thing that happens is consciousness of
action.  Physical, neural action precedes
consciousness.  Consciousness may even be irrelevant
to voluntary action.  Perhaps consciousness is merely
a side effect.

The problem is that this is not what we think nor what
has been thought throughout the history of the
Philosophy of Mind about consciousness.  We believe
that we can initiate our own actions.  We believe that
by thought alone we can move our limbs.  The whole
idea of Free Will is predicated on this possibility.
Theories of Psychology (e.g., Behaviorism) and the
Mind have fallen because they denied that our minds
can move our bodies and that action can begin in
thought alone.  Any theory that claims that this
ability to freely will action is an illusion is not
likely to get far.

Yet there it is:  Consciousness is the last thing that
happens.  Just when we think we have made up our minds
to act our neurons have already fired and the action
that we think we are now choosing is already under
way.

Of course it is possible to still have free will.  But
perhaps not conscious free will.  Our neurons firing
is our mind at work just not our conscious mind.  Our
decision can be made by our minds before we become
aware of it.  That is all that is required to fit the
observations.  It is not what we think happens but it
closely fits what does happen.  The illusion is not
that we think we have free will but that we think
consciousness must precede voluntary action.

This raises an interesting question:  Can we still
have voluntary action and free will with no
consciousness at all?  What happens if for one reason
or another no awareness of our action ever rises to
the conscious level?  What happens if the area of the
brain where consciousness occurs is damaged but the
rest of the brain mechanisms that we use to initiate
voluntary action remain intact?  Can we act but never
become conscious that we have chosen to act?  Is this
unconscious action the same as voluntary action?

In a way something like this happens when we do not
pay attention.  Perhaps every driver has experienced
what I call an "auto-pilot" episode.  This happens
when while driving one suddenly realizes that they
have no recollection of how they got to where they
are.  Sometimes we set out for one place but suddenly
become conscious that we are in fact headed somewhere
else.  We have missed a turn or followed a familiar
route rather than the one we intended.  The remarkable
thing about driving on "auto-pilot" is that drivers
don't run off the road while doing it.  They navigate
stops and turns and signals without incident   And
without conscious awareness.

Of course there is a sense in which this is
involuntary action.  Specifically we may not end up
where we intended to go.  But if we do and are just
not aware of how we got there would that be voluntary
action?  How can a driver on "auto-pilot" avoid
obstacles if not by voluntary action?  The driver in
an "auto-pilot" episode becomes conscious of it after
the fact.  If this never happened, if they never
became conscious that a part of their life was
"missing", if they never possessed conscious awareness
of the incident would this make their actions
involuntary?  Would individuals with such an
impairment possess free will?  The only difference
between them and us would be that we are conscious of
our actions -- an after the fact mental event.

There is another possibility.  Attention and awareness
-- the conscious functions missing in an "auto-pilot"
episode -- are higher level brain functions.  They are
but pieces of higher level consciousness.  On the
other hand Antonio Damasio points out in The Feeling
of What Happens (Harcourt, 1999) that the kind of
brain damage that disrupts all consciousness occurs
not in the areas identified with higher brain
functions but in the mid brain stem.  This area is
adjacent to the nexus through which all body
information is received and all motor function control
passes.  The juxtaposition is suggestive that body
feedback and control is closely linked to
consciousness.  There may be no voluntary action or
free will in the absence of consciousness because
there is no action whatsoever.  Neurologically both
action and consciousness may be fundamentally and
inseparably linked.


		
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