[Grustaf]

> "They reported that just as they were ‘about to’ push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so"

It seems to me it's just a matter of definition. Clearly it was a conscious decision, since they are able to talk about it. They even say they were "just about to push the button". The only confusion is that they also claim they hadn't "decided" to do so. So clearly there is no issue with the "conscious" part, but perhaps some confusion about what constitutes a "decision"?

I mean, what does it mean to be "about to push", if not that they had in fact decided to?

[dwringer]

I've always felt to an extent that conscious actions can be at some level impulsive - any attempt to explain how we made the decision to act, no matter how well-founded and seemingly logical, invariably involves some post-hoc rationalization. That said, I also feel that they are still conscious decisions. Taking action just seems to me divorced from the process of explaining "why", which we frequently might not even get right or necessarily understand, sometimes only making sense of it later.

[Verdex]

I think I agree with your take on this.

Our brains are already known to lie to themselves to make things appear synchronous that aren't actually synchronous. For example, syncing sound in a TV broadcast makes use of this. And I believe it's the same story with limb motion and tactile feedback. If you touch your finger, then it seems to feel like you touched it immediately despite this feeling requiring some time to work its way to your brain.

One interpretation of the experiment is that your unconscious brain decides to push the button and then tells your conscious brain to make up a story about how it was the one who made the decision.

Another interpretation of the experiment is that your conscious brain decides to push the button, but then your unconscious brain messes with your conscious brain's perception of time such that you'll believe that the button press is happening simultaneously to when you make the decision. The end result being that you "feel" like the slide changes happens before you decide to do it.

[adamsmith143]

If you made a decision before you are aware of making it how can it be conscious. At minimum it certainly wasn't under your control.

[Grustaf]

But they're saying they "were about to push the button". That sounds like they were at least very close to making the final decision. And clearly "aware".