6533b7d3fe1ef96bd1260008
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Beyond free will : The embodied emergence of conscious agency
Michael F. MascoloEeva Kalliosubject
Property (philosophy)Process (engineering)media_common.quotation_subjectAgency (philosophy)Subject (philosophy)0603 philosophy ethics and religionvapaa tahtoconsciousness050105 experimental psychologyFree willemergence0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesSociologyta611Applied Psychologyta515media_commonembodimentCognitive sciencetietoisuus05 social sciences06 humanities and the artstoimijuusLiving systemsPhilosophyEmbodied cognition060302 philosophyagencyfree willConsciousnessdescription
Is it possible to reconcile the concept of conscious agency with the view that humans are biological creatures subject to material causality? The problem of conscious agency is complicated by the tendency to attribute autonomous powers of control to conscious processes. In this paper, we offer an embodied process model of conscious agency. We begin with the concept of embodied emergence – the idea that psychological processes are higher-order biological processes, albeit ones that exhibit emergent properties. Although consciousness, experience, and representation are emergent properties of higher-order biological organisms, the capacity for hierarchical regulation is a property of all living systems. Thus, while the capacity for consciousness transforms the process of hierarchical regulation, consciousness is not an autonomous center of control. Instead, consciousness functions as a system for coordinating novel representations of the most pressing demands placed on the organism at any given time....
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-03-20 | Philosophical Psychology |