[Poem] The Illusion of Conscious Will

I read a book some time ago, a book that treated of volition,
and made the case and sought to prove, that conscious will, is
not decision.

It posited a state of mind, a trick of mental latency,
that makes us only feel we choose, mere incidental agency.

For it seems experiment has shown, just prior to an act,
An impulse for that very choice, apparently before the fact!

The choice already made, and coming from a place that's hidden,
is followed by the feeling that we made that choice unbidden!

So underneath, in hidden depths, in some place we cannot view,
there lies an unknown motive force, the "I" behind decidings' choice,
the origin of "You."

Think a thought, and trace it back, as far as it will go,
and you'll find an empty space inside, beyond which you can't know.

Can you prove the thought just thunk, plucked like magic from the air,
and feeling like a thing intended, was what you wanted then and there?

Do a deed and try to find the reason why that act,
reacting to some other cause, is something more than that!

So, are you just a passive actor, with every deed and word you've said,
chosen by some unknown power, picked by someone else instead?

I read the book and felt betrayed, by word and reason so exact,
my naive objections overthrown, by scientific fact!

And having read it all and facing that book's disquieting conclusion,
I was disheartened by the prospect of my mind's deepest delusion.

Was I trapped within a private hell, a ghost inside a zombie's shell,
a prisoner locked up in a cell? I didn't know--I coudn't tell!

I struggled, then, to find an answer, a way to find some peace,
To understand how this could be, and make my anguish cease!

I wondered, could I accept that thing I could not see,
behind a veil, illusory, and despite the science, possibly,
believe in choices...that were free?

I realized I'd forgotten, then, lost and at my reason's end, when,
confused by things beyond my ken, I'd thought that I was paper, and
that secret self, the pen.

But rather than accept that state, that I, mere paper, just a slate,
on which some other wrote my fate, I realized, tardily but not too late,
that pen and paper must merge, conflate, for together they communicate.

So rather than deny the truth that book by science did reveal,
that some part of me was choosing, but by nature did conceal,
some hidden motivation, a secret I could not unseal,
I chose instead, despite it all, to make the grand illusion real.

And know that despite the mystery, whatever's there, is still just me...

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Note: The book I'm referring to in the poem and for which it is named, is titled 'The Illusion of Conscious Will,' by Daniel M. Wegner.