There Are Conscious and Unconscious Agendas in the Brain and Both Are Important—Our Will Can Be Conscious as Well as Unconscious
Department of Clinical Neurology, Medical University Vienna, Vienna 1090, Austria
Brain Sci. 2012, 2(3), 405-420; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci2030405
Received: 28 June 2012 / Revised: 28 August 2012 / Accepted: 30 August 2012 / Published: 18 September 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Brain Knows More than It Admits: The Control of Cognition and Emotion by Non-Conscious Processes)
I have been asked to write a few words on consciousness in this editorial issue. My thoughts on consciousness will focus on the relation between consciousness and will. Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon as some people believe—it is not a psychological construct either. Consciousness is a brain function. With deeper thought it is even more than that—a brain state. Writing this, I am in a conscious state, I hope at least. In every day philosophy, a close connection of consciousness with will is ventured, and is expressed in the term “conscious free will”. However, this does not mean that our will is totally determined and not free, be it conscious or unconscious. Total determinists postulate total freedom from nature in order to speak of free will. Absolute freedom from nature is an a priori impossibility; there is no way to escape from nature. However, we have relative freedom, graded freedom, freedom in degrees, enabling us to make responsible decisions and be captains of our own destiny. We are not totally determined. We can upregulate our degrees of freedom by self-management or we can downregulate them by self-mismanagement. In the present communication consciousness and the unconscious are discussed in their various aspects and interactions.
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Keywords:
consciousness; the unconscious; free will; conscious free will; free decisions
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
MDPI and ACS Style
Deecke, L. There Are Conscious and Unconscious Agendas in the Brain and Both Are Important—Our Will Can Be Conscious as Well as Unconscious. Brain Sci. 2012, 2, 405-420. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci2030405
AMA Style
Deecke L. There Are Conscious and Unconscious Agendas in the Brain and Both Are Important—Our Will Can Be Conscious as Well as Unconscious. Brain Sciences. 2012; 2(3):405-420. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci2030405
Chicago/Turabian StyleDeecke, Lüder. 2012. "There Are Conscious and Unconscious Agendas in the Brain and Both Are Important—Our Will Can Be Conscious as Well as Unconscious" Brain Sci. 2, no. 3: 405-420. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci2030405
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