Apparent Mental Causation

Definition

The theory of apparent mental causation outlines the conditions under which people experience a sense of [Page 44]consciously willing their actions. Although people often feel that their conscious thoughts cause their actions, this feeling is illusory, as both their actions and their experience of willing them arise independently from unconscious sources. People feel apparent mental causation when their thoughts precede their actions (priority), when their thoughts are consistent with their actions (consistency), and when their thoughts are the only plausible cause of their actions (exclusivity).

An Example

Imagine that you're in the park on a summer day and a specific tree branch catches your eyes. You think, “I wish it would move up and down,” and lo and behold, it moves. Not only that, it moves in the exact direction you imagined it moving, and when you search for alternative causes for its motion, you find nothing. There is no wind or mischievous tree-climbing kid that can account for the motion. Did your thoughts cause it to move? Given that there is nothing else to account for its motion (exclusivity), and that it moved right after you thought about it (priority) in perfectly the right direction (consistency), you feel as if you caused the branch to move, even though it seems impossible. In the same way, people infer causation between their own thoughts and actions when these principles are in place.

Conscious Thoughts are Not Causal

Although it feels as though conscious thoughts cause actions, neurological evidence shows that this is highly unlikely. In a series of experiments, Benjamin Libet measured the brain activation of people as they made voluntary finger movements. Specifically, he measured the part of the motor cortex that is responsible for moving one's fingers, while also recording the time at which people said they consciously decided to move their finger. He found that participants' conscious decisions to move came after the time at which their motor cortex had started to activate. This means that their unconscious mind had already started to move their finger when they experienced the conscious decision to move it. As causes must precede effects, the conscious mind must be ruled out as the cause of people's actions. The theory of apparent mental causation suggests why and how it is that people nonetheless feel as though their thoughts cause their actions.

Three Principles of Apparent Mental Causation