[lit-ideas] Re: Conscious after the fact?

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


> Curious use of the word 'decision'.  Can I make a decision and never
> know it?


 I don't know about Phil Enns, but I do all the time. Consider, for example,
my behavior as I check and respond to my e-mail. When I start there is a
full cup of coffee sitting beside my laptop. Then comes a moment when I
reach out for another swallow of coffee and realize that the cup is empty.
Plainly I have repeatedly been reaching out, picking up the cup and taking
sips of coffee without being aware of these actions until the absence of
coffee interrupts my routine.

Phil could say, of course, "Those aren't decisions; they are only habitual
behaviors."  In making this statement he will appeal to the prototype of
rational decision making in which, ideally, the decider is conscious
throughout the process. This is the view that finds its apotheosis in
instructions on how to make rational decisions that assume (1) clear
options, (2) processes for assigning value to those options, and (3) a rule
that says to choose the option whose value is greatest, being mindful of all
the lesser decisions that go into (1') distinguishing among the options,
(2') following precisely the prescribed processes, and (3') calculating and
comparing values.

There now are, however, numerous lines of research that converge on the
proposition that most of life's choices are not made in this way. A few that
I have mentioned before include recognition-primed decision making (Gary
Klein), behavioral economics (Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman), affective
politics (George E. Marcus, W. Russell Neuman, Michael MacKuen), sociology
(Pierre Bourdieu), cognitive science (Marvin Minsky, et al.). All wrestle,
while starting from various disciplinary starting points, with a process
familiar to mystics, coaches, language and music teachers, and martial arts
instructors; to anyone, in fact, who seeks the state that Zen masters call
no-self, in which correct and effective response to fluid situations occurs
without conscious awareness.

Complicating the debate is the fact that both cognitive scientists and brain
studies folk conceptualize the mainly unconscious processes involved in all
the activities mentioned above in terms of "decision points" and "decision
trees" and are, of course, intensely mindful of the details of the models
they are constructing. It thus becomes perfectly natural for them to speak
of decisions being made of which the deciding subject is wholly or partially
unaware.

Now, where did my coffee go? Who decided to drink it?


John


-- 
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/

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