The Illusion of Conscious Will

The Illusion of Conscious Will PDF Author: Daniel M. Wegner
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262290553
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 725

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Book Description
A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. 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. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

The Illusion of Conscious Will

The Illusion of Conscious Will PDF Author: Daniel M. Wegner
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262290553
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 725

Get Book

Book Description
A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. 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. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination

Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination PDF Author: Frederick Burwick
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271042966
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description


The Illusion of Doubt

The Illusion of Doubt PDF Author: Genia Schönbaumsfeld
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198783949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
'The Illusion of Doubt' confronts one of the most important questions in philosophy - what can we know? The radical sceptic's answer is 'not very much' if we cannot prove that we are not subject to (permanent) deception, and shows that the radical sceptical problem is an illusion created by a mistaken picture of our evidential situation.

The Self Illusion

The Self Illusion PDF Author: Bruce Hood
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199969892
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.

Difference and Repetition

Difference and Repetition PDF Author: Gilles Deleuze
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826477156
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Since its publication in 1968, "Difference and Repetition", an exposition of the critique of identity, has come to be considered a contemporary classic in philosophy and one of Deleuze's most important works. The text follows the development of two central concepts, those of pure difference and complex repetition. It shows how the two concepts are related, difference implying divergence and decentring, repetition being associated with displacement and disguising. The work moves deftly between Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, Althusser and Nietzsche to establish a fundamental critique of Western metaphysics, and has been a central text in initiating the shift in French thought - away from Hegel and Marx, towards Nietzsche and Freud.

Human Creation Between Reality and Illusion

Human Creation Between Reality and Illusion PDF Author: Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402035780
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Identifying quickly illusion with deception, we tend to oppose it to the reality of life. However, investigating in this collection of essays illusion's functions in the Arts, which thrives upon illusion and yet maintains its existential roots and meaningfullness in the real, we might wonder about the nature of reality itself. Does not illusion open the seeming confines of factual reality into horizons of imagination which transform it? Does it not, like art, belong essentially to the makeup of human reality? Papers by: Lanfranco Aceti, John Baldacchino, Maria Avelina Cecilia Lafuente, Jo Ann Circosta, Madalina Diaconu, Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Brian Grassom, Marguerite Harris, Andrew E. Hershberger, James Carlton Hughes, Lawrence Kimmel, Jung In Kwon, Ruth Ronen, Scott A. Sherer, Joanne Snow-Smith, Max Statkiewicz, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Daniel Unger, James Werner.

The Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions

The Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions PDF Author: Arthur Gilman Shapiro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019979460X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
Visual illusions are compelling phenomena that draw attention to the brain's capacity to construct our perceptual world. The Compendium is a collection of over 100 chapters on visual illusions, written by the illusion creators or by vision scientists who have investigated mechanisms underlying the phenomena. --

The Moon Illusion

The Moon Illusion PDF Author: Maurice Hershenson
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1134737459
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
This unique volume attempts to answer one of mankind's oldest puzzles -- why the moon appears to be larger and closer on the horizon than when it is high in the sky. Over the centuries, many viable solutions have been proposed for this psychological phenomenon. The Moon Illusion presents papers by major theorists striving to explain the illusion and providing commentaries on the works of others. Research on the moon illusion has been scattered throughout journals in many disciplines including philosophy, physiology, physics, and psychology. As the first publication to present a comprehensive treatment of the problem, this book is of vital interest to professionals whose major concern is visual perception, experimental psychology, or the neurosciences. Of additional interest to those whose focus is physics or astronomy.

Perception, Hallucination, and Illusion

Perception, Hallucination, and Illusion PDF Author: William Fish
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195381343
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In this book, the author develops a comprehensive disjunctive theoory, incorporating detailed accounts of the three core kinds of visual experience--perception, hallucination, and illusion--and an explanation of how perception and hallucination could be indiscriminable from one another without having anything in common.

The Illusion of Difference

The Illusion of Difference PDF Author: Jeffrey G. Reitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description