That is how you drive your car and how you walk
Along with typing, tying your shoelaces etc. All 'simple' actions.
What you are describing is commonly referred to in neurological circles as 'automaticity'. Which is precisely how I described 'muscle memory'. It is limb/digit movement without conscious thought/monitoring. Luckily typists have spell checkers, and if I make a hash of tying my shoes, I just swear and start again with a little more concentration!
But it's generally a BAD idea when operating complex machinery, in which informed choice of precise action is invariably necessary.
Indeed, here in Dubai, we have the perfect example of the 'chimp' eliminating conscious thought and selecting the WRONG motor program, which then ran automatically! (They shouldn't even have pressed the TOGA buttons! We don't yet know if they did?) The problem wasn't lack of automaticity per se. Nobody needs to 'remember' how to push the thrust levers forward if that becomes necessary!! Nor are we required to do that in 99% of go-arounds! It's also difficult for the human brain to 'monitor' what our actions have achieved, when we are simultaneously, actively engaged in exercising a manual skill involving a cognitive process. Particularly so, when the picture we are seeing, is not what we were expecting.
The issue here had nothing whatsoever to do with automaticity. It's just that the wrong actions (motor programs) were hurriedly selected by the chimp. That may be due to lack of pre-briefing, lack of training, or (highly unlikely) lack of ability/knowledge!
It could possibly be a combination of such things, but I have little doubt, in the current climate, many of us (both old and bold, AND magenta line!) could easily have fallen into the same trap.