How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?

In daily life we take if for granted that our minds have conscious control of our actons, at least most of the time. But many scientists and philophers deny that this is really the case, because there is no generally accepted theory of how the mind interacts with the body. Max Velmans presents a non-reductive solution to the problem, in which 'concious mental control' includes 'voluntary' operations of the preconscious mind. On this account, biological determinism is compatible with experience free will. Velman's theory is put to the test by nine critics: Ron Chrisley, Todd Feinberg, Jeffrey Gray, John Kihlstrom, Sam Rakover, Ramakrishna Rao, Aaron Sloman, Steve Torrance and Robert Van Gulick.

Max Velmans is Reader in Psychology at Goldsmith's College.