What does alien hand syndrome tell us? It unmasks the fact that we harbor mechanical, “alien” subroutines to which we have no access and of which we have no acquaintance. Almost all of our actions—from producing speech to picking up a mug of coffee—are run by alien subroutines, also known as zombie systems. (I use these terms interchangeably: zombie emphasizes the lack of conscious access, while alien emphasizes the foreignness of the programs.)
