Drummond, N. & Niv, Y.
Current Biology
Volume 30, Issue 15, 3 August 2020,
Pages R860-R865
Free will is anything but free. With it comes the onus of choice: not only what to do, but which inner voice to listen to — our ‘automatic’ response system, which some consider ‘impulsive’ or ‘irrational’, or our supposedly more rational deliberative one. Rather than a devil and angel sitting on our shoulders, research suggests that we have two decision-making systems residing in the brain, in our basal ganglia. Neither system is the devil and neither is irrational. They both have our best interests at heart and aim to suggest the best course of action calculated through rational algorithms. However, the algorithms they use are qualitatively different and do not always agree on which action is optimal. The rivalry between habitual, fast action and deliberative, purposeful action is an ongoing one.
