There was a famous experiment many years ago by the American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet – confirmed many times since – that showed that the conscious decision to move the hand is preceded by electrical activity in the hand area of the brain. Nobody has yet provided a satisfactory account of what this really means. It is as though the deciding self is no different from the sailor in the storm who is forced to steer his boat in the storm’s direction, but then claims to have chosen the direction himself. And yet to claim, as some do, that the conscious self is an illusion, that it is no more
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