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. 2016 Jun;50(2):419-444.
doi: 10.1111/nous.12086. Epub 2015 Jan 9.

Conscious Action/Zombie Action

Joshua Shepherd  1
Affiliations

Conscious Action/Zombie Action

Joshua Shepherd. Nous. 2016 Jun.

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.

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