The Information-Processing Function of Conscious Intentions

We argue that conscious intentions are central to the cognitive control of activity, in contrast to the view that the experience of conscious control is an illusion (Wegner & Wheatley, 1999). We suggest that instantiating a goal to form a conscious intention serves the information-processing function of establishing a procedural frame of reference that organizes mental activity. Information that specifies the origin of this frame of reference simultaneously specifies the conscious agent, the “I” who performs the action. This cospecification hypothesis is part of a more general theory of consciousness (Carlson, 1997). We briefly describe this hypothesis and its theoretical basis, and consider several empirical predictions and results bearing on those predictions.