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percy-l - Conscious Will

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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

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  • From: Ken Armstrong <armstron AT ohiou.edu>
  • To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Conscious Will
  • Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 10:16:30 -0400

It being so quiet on the list, I thought this Percy-like item might not be inappropriate. There is a book out now, The Illusion of Conscious Will, which is not about a vanishing Percy relation, but might be just the kind of thing WP would have enjoyed skewering. The following is excerpted from the review on Amazon.com:

"Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel
understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The
feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to
us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. "

Well. One would think the reviewer would feel some obligation, conscious will being an illusion and all, to explain how he thinks or how the author thinks this book came into being?  If ever a theory displayed all the characteristics WP delineates in The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind, this must be it. Imagine the pathos of "developing a sense of responsibility and morality" with no capacity for will. 

TGIF and cheers to all,
Ken Armstrong



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