Consciousness is a system for deciding whether or not to do the thing that you were going to do next.

Especially interesting (and provocative) is the argument that we can observe ways that free will almost inevitably fails if it persists unrewarded for long periods, such as the dieter whose diet always fails, and thus that free will represents the ability of somewhat arbitrary strategies for conscious decision making to form and persist, but conditionally on rewards exceeding punishments over the long term.