I woke up this morning to a half-dream that has posed a challenge for today.  It had to do with proving that both free will and consciousness exist.  My task in the dream was to demonstrate that conscious thought could influence behavior.

The dream clearly is in response to something I read before going to bed last night.  It was a review of the book "Consciousness and the Computational Mind," by Jackendoff.  The author was apparently unable to avoid the conclusion that consciousness is an epiphenomenon that observes experiences but does not influence them.  This classical thought, which has been concerning me recently, must have become associated during subconscious dream activity with my essay "The Demise of Free Will?".

I dreamt that I could demonstrate that consciousness could influence behavior, and that this could be done by posing a two-action choice and selecting one or the other by stating a selection rule based on a random event.  My transition to wakefulness occurred during the part in the dream when I had to specify the two-action choice and random event.  I recall imagining some elaborate demonstration before my BBQ friends.  This would have the merit of involving witnesses who could prevent me from reniging on following through with the rules of the experiment.

The more I awakened the more skeptical I became that a person would have the courage to engage in such a demonstration, thus proving that consciousness was merely an observing epiphenomenon.  But at the same time another part of me was rising to the challenge, and wanted to prove that the opposite was true, and it wanted to do it now.  Indeed, with an unwarranted boldness I took the position that it would be possible to test the reality of consciousness this very morning by writing down on paper that I would prepare an omelette for breakfast if a coin toss were heads, or prepare dry cereal if it were tails.  But surely an even simpler test could be made using this same principle.

Being almost fully awake by now, I came up with a demonstration that was super-simple, and could be performed now:  I told myself that I would either get up from bed "now" or I would stay in bed another 5 or 10 minutes.  My selection criterion would come from reading the digital clock behind me.  If the minutes digit was even, I'd stay in bed; if it was odd, I'd get up immediately.

So, slowly at first, I turned my head, and intrepidly forced myself to quickly face the clock and take the decisive reading.  What I saw astounded me!  At exactly the moment I caught my first glimpse of the clock I saw the reading go from "7:51" to "7:52"!

Undaunted, I immediately arose, victorious, yet not completely convinced.  The final proof would have to wait for another creative dream.  I hope this doesn't become a lifetime project!
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This site opened:  October 30, 1998.   Last Update: October 30, 1998