The chicken dance may be a bit flippant. Nevertheless, because the decision always, or almost always, corresponds to the behavior there is a clear causal explanation. If you insist that the conscious decision is not the real cause you not only have to demonstrate that the brain not only causes the decision but somehow an unconscious process always, or almost always, corresponds to the decision and the behavior. The brain apparently would also have to produce the idea that doing the chicken dance would be fun or whatever the reason might be.
Say you hate your job. Really hate it. The only other job offer you can find pays 30% less. You sit down and work on your finances. If you have dependants you predict what the effect on them would be. All sort of predictions on how your life would change are taken into account. Eventually you make a decision based on your planning and balanced against the desire to get out of a job you hate.
You're Michelangelo and you have the idea in your head of a statue of David....
All these conscious experiences provide me with a perfectly rational, causal sequence for the behavior that ensues. The idea that the conscious experiences are just illusions, but also miraculously correspond to behavior really being caused by process in the brain seems incredible. The only reason for this line of thought seems to be the dogma that something immaterial cannot effect something material.
Say you hate your job. Really hate it. The only other job offer you can find pays 30% less. You sit down and work on your finances. If you have dependants you predict what the effect on them would be. All sort of predictions on how your life would change are taken into account. Eventually you make a decision based on your planning and balanced against the desire to get out of a job you hate.
You're Michelangelo and you have the idea in your head of a statue of David....
All these conscious experiences provide me with a perfectly rational, causal sequence for the behavior that ensues. The idea that the conscious experiences are just illusions, but also miraculously correspond to behavior really being caused by process in the brain seems incredible. The only reason for this line of thought seems to be the dogma that something immaterial cannot effect something material.
