Consciousness May Not Be As Powerful As You Think

by Monica Joshi

The quality or state of awareness, or being aware of an external object or something within yourself, in short — consciousness, is the one thing that we have believed defines us as being the creatures that we are. René Descartes and John Locke struggled to comprehend its nature and Eastern philosophers have been content with calling it the “I Am.” This internal dialogue that seems to govern one's thoughts and actions, however, is far less powerful than people believe, according to a new theory proposed by a professor of psychology.

The San Francisco State researcher, Ezequiel Morsella has suggested in his “Passive Frame Theory” (a fitting name, as we'll soon find out), that the conscious mind is like an interpreter. It's simply helping speakers of different languages communicate using a common base.

Morsella said that:

"The interpreter presents the information, but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared. Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn't do as much work as you think."

Morsella published his work online on June 22 in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The work contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self. According to the theory, consciousness is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Consciousness, seemingly, just does the same, simple task, over and over again sans respite.

Although it appears to be in control of a myriad of impulses such as urges, thoughts, feelings, and physical actions, it simply is not. It gives us the illusion that it is doing more than it really is.

With regards to the counterintuitive nature of the theory, Morsella said that:

"We have long thought consciousness solved problems and had many moving parts, but it's much more basic and static. ... It goes against our everyday way of thinking."

According to Morsella's framework, the "free will" that people typically attribute to their conscious mind does not exist. Wait what? So, is free will really an illusion then? Possibly, but that's not what he's saying at all. Instead he's commenting on that idea that our consciousness is a “decider,” that it guides us to a particular course of action, is not true. Consciousness only relays information to control “voluntary” or “goal-oriented” action or movement that involves the skeletal muscle system.

Compare consciousness to the Internet, Morsella suggests in his work. The Internet can be used to buy books, reserve a hotel room, and complete thousands of other tasks. Taken at face value, it would seem incredibly powerful. But, in actuality, a person in front of a laptop or clicking away on a smartphone is running the show -- the Internet is just being made to perform the same basic process, without any free will of its own.

The Passive Frame Theory also rejects the intuitive belief that one conscious thought leads to another. One thought, therefore, doesn't lead to the next, but it is rather a choppy system that goes Thought 1; Thought 2; Thought 3; ... Thought n; without a connecting point in the middle, except that it is being thought by you.

On why it has taken Morsella and his team 10 years to come to this conclusion, he said:

"The number one reason it's taken so long to reach this conclusion is because people confuse what consciousness is for with what they think they use it for. Also, most approaches to consciousness focus on perception rather than action."

The theory has major implications for the study of mental disorders as it could provide reasons as to why one has urges that they shouldn't. It could help to explain the reasons why the consciousness system doesn't know that it shouldn't be thinking about something as it doesn't actually know and can't interpret that the urge is irrelevant to other thoughts or ongoing actions until consciously changed.

The whole enterprise, the study of consciousness, is quite a fascinating feat, given that there is the inherent difficulty of applying the conscious mind to study itself. This makes it not only complicated, but also immensely anthropomorphic. Trying to understand, connect the dots and make it applicable to other creatures is a task that will take us years. Until then, we had best be humble about our understanding of the human brain.