The Decisions of Consciousness and the Consciousness of Decisions

For a long time the study of motor decision making has essentially been based on the mechanical neurophysiology of the connections between nervous structures. Empirical research and theoretical reflection have in this way been dominated by reflexological and cybernetic models without plausible alternatives. The tendency to separate the mental functions from the body, almost as though they were independent systems, has at times had negative consequences. Indeed, whether dealing with language or other cognitive and perceptive functions, the mind is profoundly influenced by the motor sphere, the oldest from an evolutionary point of view, which depends on the cortex, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum that contain motor, motivational and cognitive components. The ever-growing debate in the cognitive neurosciences, the philosophy of the mind and phenomenology shows that the time for a conceptual and epistemological change is growing nearer, a change which puts the idea of embodied consciousness and cognition back at the centre of the research being conducted.