Physically wanting a beer does not require ordering one, but the conscious decisions required to go about purchasing one must have a physical context, as does all thought, since thought is physical itself. IMO this conundrum only exists in a dualist's interpretation of mind/body. The mental process is part of a continuum between thirst and a purchased beer.
Just to check I've interpreted you correctly: You're saying that our conscious thought enables us to decide on the signals that reach conscious level. In this way, you're implying that our free decision in regard to how we react to said signals means that thoughts cause actions, giving the example of not having to order a beer despite wanting one. This 'defiance' of the physical impulse is showing that we do have conscious control. Is that correct?
Yes, to the extent that you don't consider conscious thought to be more than physical. It needn't be deterministic, but it must have process. Thinking is a physical process, resulting from other physical processes. You cannot think on what you cannot imagine. IMO this is one evidence of the physicality of thought. Thus, thought is action.
I agree that everything is physical. However, I don't think this inherently means thought is action. 'Perhaps the conscious experience of thinking is merely a byproduct of the computing going on at sub-conscious level. A boiling pot of water produces noise, but it doesn't mean it's the noise that is cooking the egg. Thought could be a necessary byproduct of neural computation that doesn't itself produce the solution. If you think about thinking, doesn't there seem to be something involuntary about it?' With the example of the beer once again, something in the physical or subconscious environment could be processed which may cause you to change your mind. The thought, 'actually I wont have beer' could just be a byproduct of that.
I see what you are saying. I think there is probably some truth to it actually, but I don't think the conscious and subconscious can be easily divided, and I doubt that one is simply representative of the other. Interestingly, in patients that have had their corpus callosum cut (the white matter connecting the two hemispheres), the person's actions can betray their conscious mind. I remember reading that although a patient might consciously select one shirt to wear, their arm might grab another. I think more likely than the conscious simply being a reflection of the subconscious, it is probably just another type of processing that is one part of the complete system. I imagine that decisions are the result of competing processes, of which conscious thought is but one part.'Perhaps the conscious experience of thinking is merely a byproduct of the computing going on at sub-conscious level. A boiling pot of water produces noise, but it doesn't mean it's the noise that is cooking the egg. Thought could be a necessary byproduct of neural computation that doesn't itself produce the solution. If you think about thinking, doesn't there seem to be something involuntary about it?'