Professor Bruce Hood: Me, myself and I

You made the decision to read this interview, right? Wrong. Prof Hood explains why your sense of self is merely an illusion

- Andy Ridgway

We commonly believe in the idea of the ‘self’ – an individual making decisions in our heads. Do you have a different view? 

Neuroscience gives us a big clue as to what’s going on. When we make a decision, such as “I will pick up that cup of coffee,” we feel that someone, our self, has initiated that decision. We think we have the mental thought first and then the action follows. But we know from neuroscience that it can be the other way round. Something in our body wants a cup of coffee and the motor system inside our brain prepares for the movement. It is about half a second later when we get this conscious thought, “I’ll pick up that coffee.” In fact, a lot of consciousness is after the fact. This shows us that what we think of as a ‘self’ making decisions, is not what it seems.

So how do we actually make decisions?