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- Title
Free Action as Two Level Voluntary Control.
- Authors
Dilworth, John
- Abstract
The naturalistic voluntary control (VC) theory explains free will and consciousness in terms of each other. It is central to free voluntary control of action that one can control both what one is conscious of, and also what one is not conscious of. Furthermore, the specific cognitive ability or skill involved in voluntarily controlling whether information is processed consciously or unconsciously can itself be used to explain consciousness. In functional terms, it is whatever kind of cognitive processing occurs when a conscious state is voluntarily chosen. This leads to a bivalent view of cognitive processing in which there is voluntary choice either of non-routine (conscious) or routine (unconscious) kinds of processing. On this VC account, consciousness could not exist without its being possible to voluntarily choose a non-routine kind of processing. But what makes voluntary choice itself possible? The VC theory appeals to the evolutionary inadequacy of a purely low level routine/non-routine (RN) control system that lacks voluntary control. A two level causal system in which a sophisticated upper voluntary level controls the lower RN system offers much more explanatory power and evolutionary fitness. Since the upper level is partly causally independent of the lower level, its decisions are not determined by the lower level—hence free voluntary control is possible. So both consciousness and free voluntary control must have evolved together.
- Publication
Philosophical Frontiers: A Journal of Emerging Thought, 2008, Vol 3, Issue 2, p41
- ISSN
1758-1532
- Publication type
Academic Journal