How Plausible Is It That Conscious Control Is Illusory? Available to Purchase

Findings in a number of neuropsychological studies involving reports of decisions to initiate spontaneous movement (e.g., Fried, Mukamel, and Kreiman, 2011; Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl, 1983; Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008) are often interpreted as putting in question the reality of conscious control and, by extension, the time-honored concept of free will. I suggest that several problems with the basic paradigm used by most such studies, elaborated on in some recent articles (prominently Miller, Shepherdson, & Trevena, 2011, and Schurger, Sitt, & Dehaene, 2012), as well as some other arguments, raise doubt that conscious control is in fact a gratuitous byproduct of preconscious brain activity.