Conscious Action/Zombie Action.

Joshua Shepherd

doi:10.1111/nous.12086

Abstract

I argue that the neural realizers of experiences of trying (that is, experiences of directing effort towards the satisfaction of an intention) are not distinct from the neural realizers of actual trying (that is, actual effort directed towards the satisfaction of an intention). I then ask how experiences of trying might relate to the perceptual experiences one has while acting. First, I assess recent zombie action arguments regarding conscious visual experience, and I argue that contrary to what some have claimed, conscious visual experience plays a causal role for action control in some circumstances. Second, I propose a multimodal account of the experience of acting. According to this account, the experience of acting is (at the very least) a temporally extended, co‐conscious collection of agentive and perceptual experiences, functionally integrated and structured both by multimodal perceptual processing as well as by what an agent is, at the time, trying to do.

Highlights

At some point many of us have performed the following exercise
I take up questions about the role of perceptual experiences in action control, and about the relation between perceptual experiences and the experience of trying
An experience of trying directs effort towards the satisfaction of an intention because the neural realizers of such an experience are not distinct from those that realize the actual direction of effort towards the satisfaction of an intention

Summary

Introduction

At some point many of us have performed the following exercise. Concentrating on what it is like to do it, we decide to move a body part and move it, slowly and carefully. An anonymous referee notes that a natural way to construe agentive experience on this model is in terms of judgments the agent makes about her action after the action has begun – judgments either constituted by or based upon the outputs of a mechanism that is functionally unimportant for the generation and direction of bodily movements If this is right, we might doubt that experiences of trying play the causal roles they seem to play. This study gives us evidence that an experience-‐type closely related to an experience of trying can be induced by stimulation of the IPL These brain-‐stimulation studies, in conjunction with the self-‐paralysis studies discussed earlier, point in the direction of a constitutive view: the neural activity that realizes an experience of trying is just a part of the neural activity that directs real-‐time action control. I take up questions about the role of perceptual experiences in action control, and about the relation between perceptual experiences and the experience of trying

Visual experience and zombie action

Does conscious visual experience contribute to action control?

The multimodal experience of acting

Conclusion