Don’t even know should I flair this as physics or biology lol
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You perceive reality with about a half second lag. When you look at the watch suddenly, you perceive the position of the second hand about half a second later. So that doesn’t feel too weird, your brain helpfully pretends to your consciousness that you’ve been seeing it in that same position for the whole of that half second (though really it was in its previous position). Then of course it remains in the same position for up to another whole second. Making it seem like it was there for a second and a half in total. But it wasn’t. And you know it wasn’t, because it’s a second hand. But it still looks like it was still for a second and a half because your consciousness is a half a second behind reality and your brain lies to you.
Once you’ve got your head round that, think about a police sniper watching a stakeout or whatever. They have less than a second to respond if the perp raises their gun – so are they conscious of their decision to pull the trigger? They will feel like they were, but they couldn’t have been. It was a reflex action and their brain lies to them that they made the decision.
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