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Our discussion concerning action potentials compels me to ask a potentially crude question.

Are action potentials reaching threshold directly responsible for not only compulsions, but difficult, reasoned decisions?

Take the following mundane occurence:

I am lying under the covers on an extremely cold night when suddenly I realize I left the front door unlocked. Now I am snug in bed, in a considerably comfortable position. What must ensue is a struggle between the urge to remain warm and comfortable and the "thought" or rational realization that leaving the door unlocked might very well facilitate an invasion of my home. Eventually, I do throw myself out of bed, but the process is perhaps analogous to a pressure system, wherein my urge to stay warm is gradually overcome by my fear of danger (or desire to remain safe).

Is this example entirely predicated upon action potentials? was my getting out of bed the result of a self-generated inter-neuron action potential reaching threshold? Or is a thought itself a successful (past threshold) action potential?

Also note that I claim a compulsion (an urge) is coming into conflict with a rational thought, but I wonder if there is any sort of dichotomy when it comes to imperative thought or action. That is, the "decision" to lock my door can only manifest itself toward action as an urge with an emotional basis. A rational thought cannot compel me to jump out of bed and sacrifice my comfort; what started off as an indifferent logical realization came to influence my actions as fear/desire. 

What I am trying to get at, is the nature of willpower. The above conflict between staying in bed and getting up seems illustrative of something significant. Action is an outpout; it requires motor-neurons to fire successfully. However, in the moment where a decision becomes an action, what we have is a thought bearing upon us as compulsion. What signals then, what action potentials, are operating when I finally will myself out of bed? I can imagine there is an integral dynamic to grasp in this moment, wherein thought becomes compulsion and overpowers a competing compulsion.

One thing i see hear here is that the I-function cannot manifest in a moment of action. If every action comes to bear as compulsion, then self-awareness loses salience in that moment. It was after all an emotional fear/desire that propelled me out of bed, not a logical series of thoughts.

Does this not seem an imperative matter to understand? Any claim to morality or responsibility needs to address the inescapable absence of awareness in the discreet moments wherein a thought becomes compulsion becomes action.