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Updated: Sep 29, 2025

Characterization of the Sense of Agency over the Actions of Neural-machine Interface-operated Prostheses
Published on: January 7, 2019
Consciousness generates agent action
Jonathan Delafield-Butt1, Colwyn Trevarthen2
1Laboratory for Innovation in Autism, University of Strathclyde, GlasgowG1 1QE, UKjonathan.delafield-butt@strath.ac.ukhttps://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/delafieldbuttjonathandr/.
Abstract:
Consciousness directs the actions of the agent for its own purposive gains. It re-organises a stimulus-response linear causality to deliver generative, creative agent action that evaluates the subsequent experience prospectively. This inversion of causality affords special properties of control that are not accounted for in integrated information theory (IIT), which is predicated on a linear, deterministic cause-effect model. IIT remains an incomplete, abstract, and disembodied theory without explanation of the psychobiology of consciousness that serves the vital agency the organism.
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