GREATEST MYTH OF ALL

摘要

You know what it's like to be you—to be aware of yourself as an individual with your own thoughts and feelings. You know how it feels to have consciousness. More than likely you also feel responsible for your thoughts and actions, that you decide what to think and say and do. But you are mistaken—your experience of consciousness is an elaborate self-deception. Neuropsychologiststs and researchers studying certain types of brain damage have come to the conclusion that many of our actions and perceptions are carried out by unconscious parts of our brains (New Scientist, 5 September 1998, p 30). For example, if you want to reach out and pick up an object, you don't need to be conscious of the exact size and shape of it, or what each of your muscles needs to do.