One of the most frequently visited pages on Conscious Entities is this account of Benjamin Libet’s remarkable experiments, which seemed to show that decisions to move were really made half a second before we were aware of having decided. To some this seemed like a practical disproof of the freedom of the will – if the decision was already made before we were consciously aware of it, how could our conscious thoughts have determined what the decision was? Libet’s findings have remained controversial ever since they were published; they have been attacked from several different angles, but his results were confirmed and repeated by other researchers and seemed solid.
However, Libet’s conclusions rested on the use of Readiness Potentials (RPs). Earlier research had shown that the occurence of an RP in the brain reliably indicated that a movement was coming along just afterwards, and they were therefore seen as a neurological sign that the decision to move had been taken (Libet himself found that the movement could sometimes be suppressed after the RP had appeared, but this possibility, which he referred to as ‘free won’t ‘, seemed only to provide an interesting footnote). The new research, by Trevena and Miller at Otago, undermines the idea that RPs indicate a decision.
Two separate sets of similar experiments were carried out. They resembled Libet’s original ones in most respects, although computer screens and keyboards replaced Libet’s more primitive equipment, and the hand movement took the form of a key-press. A clock face similar to that in Libet’s experiments was shown, and they even provided a circling dot. In the earlier experiments this had provided an ingenious way of timing the subject’s awareness that a decision had been made – the subject would report the position of the dot at the moment of decision – but in Trevena and Miller’s research the clock and dot were provided only to make conditions resemble Libet’s as much as possible. Subjects were told to ignore them (which you might think rendered their inclusion pointless). This was because instead of allowing the subject to choose their own time for action, as in Libet’s original experiments, the subjects in the new research were prompted by a randomly-timed tone. This is obviously a significant change from the original experiment; the reason for doing it this way was that Trevena and Miller wanted to be able to measure occasions when the subject decided not to move as well as those when there was movement. Some of the subjects were told to strike a key whenever the tone sounded, while the rest were asked to do so only about half the time (it was left up to them to select which tones to respond to, though if they seemed to be falling well below a 50-50 split they got a reminder in the latter part of the experiment). Another significant difference from Libet’s tests is that left and right hands were used: in one set of experiments the subjects were told by a letter in the centre of the screen whether they should use the right or left hand on each occasion, in the other it was left up to them.
There were two interesting results. One was that the same kind of RP appeared whether the subject pressed a key or not. Trevena and Miller say this shows that the RP was not, after all, an indication of a decision to move, and was presumably instead associated with some more general kind of sustained attention or preparing for a decision. Second, they found that a different kind of RP, the Lateralised Readiness Potential or LRP, which provides an indication of readiness to move a particular hand, did provide an indication of a decision, appearing only where a movement followed; but the LRP did not appear until just after the tone. This suggests, in contradiction to Libet, that the early stages of action followed the conscious experience of deciding, rather than preceding it.
The differences between these new experiments and Libet’s originals provide a weak spot which Libetians will certainly attack. Marcel Brass, whose own work with fMRI scanning confirmed and even extended Libet’s delay, seeming to show that decisions could be predicted anything up to ten seconds before conscious awareness, has apparently already said that in his view the changes undermine the conclusions Trevena and Miller would like to draw. Given the complex arguments over the exact significance of timings in Libet’s results, I’m sure the new results will prove contentious. However, it does seem as if a significant blow has been struck for the first time against the foundations of Libet’s remarkable results.
1. Matt says:
Considering that usually in science, extraordinary claims need to be backed-up with extraordinary evidence, it’s always seemed strange to me that Libet’s findings – which were clearly open to interpretation – were taken by so many, so quickly, to be such strong evidence for the highly counter-intuitive, and counter-experiential idea that free will is an illusion.
For me, in accepting that materialism (as currently understood)is almost certainly wrong, and looking towards some kind Chalmers-like monism, or even dualism, as an alternative, it’s never actually been necessary to appeal to the supernatural, rather only accept that there’s so much that we are yet to fully grasp. Yet the materialist mainstream generally seem bent on denial of alternatives, in what appears to me to be some latent overreaction to the threat of returning to a world dominated by non-scientific superstition. For example, I’d argue that it’s not so much Descartes’ dualism they really object to as so much the belief system behind the idea.
The over-ready acceptance and use of Libet’s evidence was symptomatic of this state of affairs.
September 26, 2009, 10:55 am2. 2bsirius says:
I’ve wondered about the connections made around Libet’s research in the past, even before these new findings were published. The determinists are looking at Miller and Trevena’s research and claiming that it does not contradict Libet’s preferred conclusion [at least, they claim, it's not an outright contradiction]. Only time and more data will determine this, I guess.
September 26, 2009, 3:50 pm3. DATY says:
Libet would be rolling in his grave if he could- and he’d have no choice about it.
Anyway, it is curious that many people were quick to claim and cling to Libet’s work and its most popular interpretation for support of the idea that human beings had no free-will.
But I’m a materialist and I don’t believe the cleft caused by Libet’s work divides materialists and dualists — or Chalmer monists (everything is consciiousn). I think the divide has been between i) people who accept Libet because they think it’s bad ass to do so; and 2) others who understand that the folk in prior category are trying to be trendy, in an academically needy, carelessly hipster sort way.
So much for pop-culture trends in psychological “science.”
September 27, 2009, 2:59 am4. Gary Williams says:
To borrow a metaphor from Hofstadter, looking for freewill on the sub-second neural level is like looking for a traffic jam inside of a single car. You simply won’t find what you are looking for. One must zoom out to a higher order of organization in order to find voluntary action.
September 27, 2009, 2:22 pm5. Alex says:
Some of you seem like you’ve been waiting for a good reason to talk about why people who look at Libet’s results and claim that they make a good case against free will are going about it all wrong. Let’s not forget that if you’re convinced that we have free will, you must be holding out for some pretty major revolutions in the physical sciences. You’re counting on some kind of data to be generated that can only be dealt with by a major reworking of some of the most basic(and experimentally successful in the sense that they can be used to make accurate predictions) principles of modern science. I think for the most part people who accept Libet’s results do so because free will doesn’t really make sense under current scientific paradigms, and because of that it’s easier to accept that free will is an illusion than it is to be certain that a major scientific revolution is on its way that will account for free will and make everyone confortable about being in control of their own lives again.
It’s not about “trying to be trendy, in an academically needy, carelessly hipster sort way,” its about accepting the view of the world that actual working theories and data provide. Being so certain that free will can be proven seems to be based more on faith and motivated by your discomfort with the alternative than by any actual evidence.
September 27, 2009, 4:17 pm6. Doru says:
After looking carefully into the experiment, it appears to me that the RP moment is still the moment when the decision is made. Even as is described as the preparation to take a decision, I would argue that is the moment when the brain does a little rehearsal of what is going to become conscious of. The LRP appears to be a moment of decision, but is an illusory one, the decision is taken prior to the moment of consciousness about it. Libet is still right in my opinion.
September 27, 2009, 6:07 pm7. David says:
If physicists or chemists conduct an experiment and observe a new relationship between the observed behaviour of things and the data, they try to explain it as was done here, but they do so in terms of models that have a reasonable foundation and proven record of explanation.
Here, I see people doing some decent experiments but drawing some facile and worthless conclusions talking about “free will” and “free won’t” and “decision”… what does any of this mean? Of course we understand these terms in an everyday sense, but to rely on these as a scientific explanation is unbelievable.
This is an unfortunately common example, in this field, of people running before they can crawl; there needs to be a reasoned and logical foundation for the language and concepts used before the results of such experiments can be interpreted scientifically.
September 28, 2009, 1:44 am8. Vicente says:
Free-will is probably one of the most important topics for philosophy, since it is a core building-block for any attempt to contruct ethics. All these experiments, although very interesting, seem to be far too simple to be used in the free-will discussion. Most decisions that really matter need to be taken in much longer periods (yes, sometimes humans are forced to make up their minds in a few seconds in emergencies). Could be that simple decisions like pressing a button, are left to random processes in the brain, since there is no need at all for reasoning or considerations. Would it be possible to make a similar experiment where asking the subject to buy a new car, or accept or reject a job offer?
September 28, 2009, 7:11 am9. DATY says:
Alex,
I believe that free-will is an illusion if by free-will one means to refer to a super or meta-causal force that works above and beyond the deterministic framework of classical physics. But when I refer to free-will I am referring to Ego, to some sort of centralized locus or source for behavioral modulation or neuromuscular change–to the self that causes and is aware of such a change. No scientific revolution would need to take place in order to accommodate such a notion. But to the contrary, it took Libet’s work to make the contrary (ie, the self is illusory) considerable in the first place.
As for my contention that supporters of Libet and his conclusions about the human mind make up a gang of hipster dolts who don’t think hard and criticize the scientific literature enough, well, in my experience it’s true, not neccesarily true of course, but simply, informally speaking, true of every person I’ve ever come across who makes a reference to Libet’s work, who does so always in that air of a person speaking in facts and never without even a hint of refrain or suggestion that such research is not undeniable, may be incomplete, the data itself provided by such research questionable and interpretable in different ways. Simply put, a lot and a lot more is needed to prove Libet is even basically right. Yet one wouldn’t sense that from wading through the opinions of the folk who follow these issues.
Anyway, let’s not forget that Trevena and Miller are not doing revolutionary work. Nobody here is proposing new a paradigm.
September 29, 2009, 1:36 am10. vakibs says:
If you identify brain as the “agent” of consciousness, then Libet’s experiments obviously prove that free-will doesn’t exist. This is the position of the physicalists.
However, idealists don’t consider the brain to be the “agent” of consciousness, but rather the “instrument” of consciousness. I’ll clarify this position. Like in a remotely controlled robot, the brain is receiving instructions from elsewhere to execute choices. Only a part of these instructions are recorded (in a memory backup facility) and this act of backup happens after these instructions race down the neural highway. What Libet’s experiments prove is the latency between the backing up and the execution of these instructions. They say nothing about the origin of these instructions, even though Libet himself jumped the gun in drawing his conclusions about free-will.
In my opinion, free-will is tied to the notion of determinism in physics. Our universe is not deterministic, even though many scientists (and philosophers) desperately want it to be. Personally, I consider consciousness to be universal and singular. It has no seat in space and time. It is something even more fundamental than space and time, its nature should be investigated in the very question of “why existence”. Consciousness pervades this universe as a field, different objects are capable of interacting with it at different levels. Animal and human brains are just some of some of sharpest antennas that have evolved so far, to interact with this field.
September 29, 2009, 9:42 am11. vakibs says:
I think a good perspective on free-will is present in the writings of Erwin Schrodinger, particularly in the epilogue of his legendary book “what is life” named freewill and determinism.
September 29, 2009, 9:51 am12. Vicente says:
Hi Vakibs
If the brain is just an interface between the “spiritual” world and the material world then, does it matter wether the laws of physics are deterministic or not in the free will discussion?
If the brain is just an interface, by what mechanisms brain chemistry has such an influence in perception, reasoning, behaviour, mood and other “states of mind”.
If mind has no seat in space and time, how does it interact with “objects” in space and time?
Unless everything is mind, idealism seems incoherent.
September 29, 2009, 1:28 pm13. vakibs says:
Hi Vicente
There are no two different worlds : spiritual and material. There is just one single universe, and it is independent of anything outside it (if there exists anything beyond it). Whether there exists a finite (or even countably infinite) set of physical laws that determine the behavior of the universe is the question. I believe the answer is no : the universe is non-deterministic and this non-determinism cannot be resolved away at any scale of looking at it.
Brain is no different from any other physical (material) object in the way it is influenced by the laws of physics. It is subject to deterministic laws, and at the same time it has “access” to break away from this determinism. Any object in this universe (whether that be an electron or a brain) has a “free-will” (non-determinism) that is defined by the scale of the environment that can be sensed by it (or equivalently, the amount of information about surroundings that can be represented by that object). Without knowledge, there is no meaning for freedom.
If mind has no seat in space and time, how does it interact with “objects” in space and time?
September 30, 2009, 9:43 pmI’d use the word “consciousness” instead of “mind”. My take on this problem is that consciousness is universal. It is the reason why space and time exist, to begin with. Take a piece of space-time in the universe, and consciousness will have to be present in it. The author of this blog uses the word “pan-psychism” or “pixies everywhere” to describe this. But I don’t want to use these words, because I’d like to highlight my position which is that consciousness is not only universal but also singular. This is best described by the word “monism”.
14. Vicente says:
It is confussing to use the mathematical/physical concepts of determinism, that are well defined in terms of the mathematical properties of the set of differential equations we use to model a particular system, and the properties of its solutions. Then we have, deterministic systems that allow us to predict the evolution up to a certain extent, or chaotic systems in which boundary conditions require too much presion and accuracy in practical terms, therefore predictions are almost impossible, or quantum systems in which solutions are understood in terms of probability derived from the wave function. And all these concepts are well defined.
I don’t believe these concepts can be “directly” used in the free-will problem. Even if modelling the brain as a physical system, the problem is too complex too understand the decision making process in neurophysiological terms, irrespective of the nature.
If you toss a coin, wether you find head of tails, does not mean that the coin has made a decision. In a quantum system, once you measure a particular value (amongst a possible set) for a variable, does not mean that the system has “made the decision” to have that value.
Before using Libet-like experiments we should defined what kind of processes could be supporting decision making, and what do we really mean by making a decision. I believe there is a big range from compulsive actions to analytical decisions and cannot be treated in the same fashion. Free will has to terms. First, let see what do we really mean by “will”, and then if is is free or fully conditioned.
Moreover, if the free-will problem is ever solved, we would need to analyse the moral implications.
Up to what extent is a man responsible for his acts?
October 1, 2009, 8:02 am15. vakibs says:
If you toss a coin, whether you find head of tails, does not mean that the coin has made a decision.
No, it is not the “coin” which made the decision. But clearly a decision has been made here and a symmetry has been broken to a clearly defined outcome. If this decision is the outcome of a previously defined set of laws, then this outcome can be called deterministic. Otherwise, it will be called a “free” outcome, something that is beyond the set of laws of physics (as they are defined up till that point).
Stochastic determinacy is just a different level of looking at things. Things which are random or chaotic (like molecules in an ideal gas) usually present an order at a grander scale. My take is that the universe is not even stochastically deterministic, at any scale. There shall never be a finite (or countably infinite) set of laws that can completely define the universe (or a piece of it). This limitation is not just with respect to our current understanding of the universe, which is indeed woefully incomplete. But about the very nature of this universe.
The probabilistic nature of quantum systems need not be called non-deterministic. What is non-deterministic about quantum systems is the step where this probability is broken and where the wave function collapses into a fixed state. As we understand, this step cannot be explained today by any (countably infinite) set of physical laws. My take is that this shall forever remain so, no countably infinite set of physical laws shall *ever* describe this. This pure non-deterministic nature is the source of freedom in the universe.
It is a philosophical perspective whether you look upon this non-determinacy as due to an “agent” (in which case, these outcomes will be due to the “free-will” of that agent), or whether you look upon it as a split of the whole universe into parallel universes. I take the former perspective, because I don’t want to create a multitude of additional variables (parallel universes) to explain our current universe.
In a quantum system, once you measure a particular value (amongst a possible set) for a variable, does not mean that the system has “made the decision” to have that value.
I am not arguing about “what” made the decision about this value. But clearly, a decision has been made about this. I believe that there exists one *single* agent in this universe who makes decisions. Whether that decision is recorded in a particular physical object in this universe (whether that be the brain of a human being, or the molecular arrangement of a gas etc) is immaterial and secondary.
Up to what extent is a man responsible for his acts?
October 1, 2009, 11:40 amUp to the extent to which he is conscious of his decisions. In simpler words, up to the extent to which he has a recorded knowledge of his decision process (this information being stored either neurologically in the brain, or linguistically in an external region).
16. Vicente says:
OK vakibs,
I could get along with your points. Could be that this “agent” exists, and for the case of the quantum system is even more reasonable, once hidden variables are discarded… there must be a “cause” for the observations. Then we can get recursive and ask the same questions about that prior agent, and so on.
In the last point, I completely disagree, being conscious of decisions implies no responsibility. The question is why a certain decision is made? In the same situation one man would chose to push the trigger, while other not. Why? At the end of the day free will could be an illusion, or not, I don’t know.
As Soppenhauer said, a man might not do what he wants but cannot not want what he wants (this statement gave peace of mind to A. Einstein in his own words) and this is all about intencionality.
I somehow disagree from Soppenhauer, I believe that through enough reflection and meditation a man can change what he wants. Then again, why some peoble chose to reflect and meditate trying to improve themselves why others “in similar conditions” don’t… you see, back to square one.
October 2, 2009, 7:13 am17. vakibs says:
I like very much that quote from Soppenhauer
But I don’t know what it actually means.
A man might not do what he wants but cannot not want what he wants
But does the man really “know” what he wants ? Otherwise, it could just be a mechanical thought that is induced into his brain by repetitive exposure, just like how modern politics and advertising work.
For example, a man who keeps on walking in a circle might have an artificial choice between walking clockwise and walking counter-clockwise. If you ask such a man what he wants, he might tell you an answer. But does this answer really mean what he “wants”. Until the man is “aware” of the possibility that he can break away from the circular path, and choose a different path, a desire to choose this possibility wouldn’t germinate in his mind. Right ?
I think understanding what I want (or equivalently) understanding what I “am”, in itself, is the biggest desire of all. This, at a fundamental level, is what man wants : freedom and knowledge. Both of them come hand in hand; neither of them is meaningful without the other.
I think this desire is universal and present in every human being, and indeed in every object in this universe. But the strength with which this desire is felt varies between different objects. I think this is why there is a variance in the level of consciousness that is present in different people.
October 2, 2009, 3:14 pm18. Ivo says:
To some this seemed like a practical disproof of the freedom of the will – if the decision was already made before we were consciously aware of it, how could our conscious thoughts have determined what the decision was?
This argument wrongly presupposes that you have to be consciously aware of something before free will can come into play. A slight variant of the argument insists that we actually do not have rational reasons for the decisions we make and that we just make them up afterwards. That variant wrongly presupposes that unconscious processes cannot work in a rational fashion.
When we become consciously aware of a decision and introspectively try to reconstruct the process leading to that decision, we may very well be reconstructing the unconscious process that led to the decision. On that view, the unconscious process has all the properties of the conscious process, such as room for rational arguments and free will. This doesn’t prove anything about the existence of free will, but it does rule out that Libets experiment could possibly say anything about free will.
October 4, 2009, 2:05 pm19. Doru says:
Hi Vakibs,
Great quote indeed.
“A MAN WANTS”, implies he is the one with a purpose and is something that our unconscious autopilot cannot have outside of whatever that purpose is.
Libet was right because when talking about 300 millisecond decisions, that purpose looses it’s meaning and we really have no choice but trust that our autopilot that is trained through repetitive practice will take the right decision for us in a split of a second.
I always say to myself:
October 4, 2009, 2:27 pmWhen the moment of fast action comes, never trust your consciousness to take the right decisions, but always practice in advance and prepare. Don’t try to be conscious or understand, but be prepared! I learn this from Bruce Lee. He was the one that was able to reduce the lagging between the unconscious/conscious decision almost to zero by practicing and learning how not be conscious. In other words, we are not naturally machines, but is helpful to become like one.
20. Luis García says:
There is a naive idea:
October 6, 2009, 8:56 pmWe know that any single mechanical action is reversible, while any complicated enough mechanical system can’t escape the second principle and behaves in an irreversible fashion.
We know that atoms are not alive by themselves, but systems composed of atoms and organized in a certain way display that amazing property we call life.
Why should it be that we, human beings, can’t have free will even if the tiny, elemental decisions that build up our behavior are not “free” in the sense that Libet’s experiments supposedly demonstrate?. In the end, the subject of the experiment could have not move her hand at all, just because she has decided beforehand to kid the experimenter a bit…
21. John says:
The design of experiments on conscious volition must take into account several factors.
Firstly we know that after training a person can react reflexly to events – decisions do not even require conscious intervention. Ask any fighter pilot or footballer. So experiments on decisions in response to tones are in danger of being confounded by training. The experiement could well just be measuring a trained reaction time.
Secondly, whenever you know that you have decided to do something the decision has, by definition, already been made. So, if an experiment shows that the brain activity associated with a conscious decision occurs AFTER the conscious knowledge of the decision the experiment would simply be wrong. The readiness potential (RP) demonstrates that there is always the expected brain activity BEFORE a decision but does not reveal the result of the decision.
Thirdly, if an action occurs after a decision of which I am conscious then the action has been delayed relative to a reflex action. Any test that shows a delay just shows that subjects can indeed delay an action until after they have confirmed that they are conscious of the decision to act.
What I would conclude from this is that the experiments described above are in the third category, they were set up to demonstrate that people can wait until they are sure that they have made a decision before acting. The new categorisation of readiness potentials is interesting however, from a physiological rather than philosophical perspective, the LRP may be an indicator of withholding an action or may be a normal preparation for action.
I really do not understand why it is counterintuitive to say that I cannot consciously decide to do something “now!”.
When is “now”? Say “now!”. The “now” that is encapsulated in the word and the sound of the word is in the past – Aristotle spotted this problem of the present always being past over two millennia ago. You cannot do, or know anything in no time at all, in the real, physical “now”. Machines cannot do anything now either.
If I sit down and think “I’ll move a finger” when do I actually consciously decide to move that finger? Well, it can’t be now because “now” is no time at all. It must have been “then” so whenever I am conscious of a decision being made I have already made it! Is that “free will”? Clearly there is something weird about “time” in conscious experience here. (See Presentism and the denial of mind).
October 12, 2009, 12:08 pm22. Jens says:
Hello there. I have a simple question.
I haven’t thoroughly investigated this webpage, but I’ve hastily read your conclusions and general content. To me, you seem to be missing one very interesting field of science (and philosophy as well, I will claim). Read about what and why here:
http://www.ufoskeptic.org/grossman.html
If you’re honest in your search for the truth, read it thoroughly and with an open mind.
Peace
October 16, 2009, 10:00 pm23. Peter says:
Thanks, Jens. I don’t at all dismiss the introspective evidence gleaned from near-death experiences, but it does seem to me that we need to distinguish between its validity as evidence (evidence that conscious experience is something different from physical existence) and its veridicality (it feels as if I’m existing without a body, therefore I am existing without a body). The second case is clearly weak; in dreams it seems as if all sorts of nonsensical things are true, so we can’t put much faith in the direct truth of a simple feeling that we are not in our body. However, the unique feeling of consciousness and the sense that nothing physical could possibly account for it is something we can experience even without a near-death experience (though perhaps with less intensity), and something that many people since Brentano have considered unanswerable evidence against monist materialism.
I plan to post a discussion of Metzinger’s new book soon: he devotes a large section to out-of-body experiences – he has had them himself – but he comes to a sceptical conclusion (perhaps a bit too sceptical, I think).
October 18, 2009, 2:51 pm24. jesus olmo says:
“What’s expected of us” by Ted Chiang, an ultra-short story inspired by Benjamin Libet’s experiments…
http://www.concatenation.org/futures/whatsexpected.pdf
October 18, 2009, 6:48 pm25. John Davey says:
I have seen other experiments which appear to have shown that the nature of a decision can be predicted with great accuracy four or five seconds before the decision was consciously “made”. That would appear to be a confirmation of Libet’s findings.
But the real aim, I suspect,of undermining the idea of free will is to support the theory that the brain is deterministic. Of course, these results do not support that conclusion : they merely support the conclusion that some decisions, when made, originate at a subconscious level. This makes perfect sense to me, and reflects the fact that most of my actions are just initiated by the brain without much reflection or analysis : and thank god for that, as life is too short.
December 27, 2009, 7:32 pm26. Ronald K. Olson says:
December 31, 2009
Thursday
5:18 p.m.
As of April, 2008, with the paper presented by Chun Siong Soon titled, “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain,” which explained the findings of Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze, and John-Dylan Haines; as of 2008, Libet’s ideas are ancient history and irrelevant. According to the Soon and colleagues’ paper, the initiation of preparatory brain function occurred anywhere from seven to ten seconds before the subject was consciously aware of the already thoroughly choreographed activity. As has been mentioned in earlier comments, an individual is often called upon to respond to a situation rather immediately. It is worth noting that within the realm of quantum physics, the concept of “immediately” describes a rather precise and unimaginably grand period of time. Still, in such circumstances, the luxury of seven to ten seconds to prepare a response is not to be.
Soon and colleagues’ paper, along with Libet’s, described the brain’s ability to terminate a prepared action after it has entered the realm of conscious awareness. The concept of “don’t,” or, “stop,” is a neurological function which is embedded deep within the brain in our earliest years and practiced at the quantum level to the point of reflexive redundancy. This one basic concept has a well developed neurological trunk line affording it almost mindless accessibility. Pain is often the stimulation, but verbal command is equally common. Steve Pinker has described pre-conscious brain activity as a maelstrom of competing voices of which only one ultimately becomes the behavior, and that behavior can be either mental or physical. Another professor in southern California, I have yet to find his name, explained brain behavior as being “surprise intolerant.” Brain function is dynamically anticipatory. It strives to prepare for as many potentialities as its genetically engineered machinery is capable of preparing for. The greater a brain’s ability to function is, the more potentialities it is able to sustain. At any one point in time, the brain can have innumerable scenario strings surging for their moment, vying for the opportunity to become the action. As data comes in revealing the circumstance’s precise needs, this multitude of scenario strings is “gradually” reduced to one. For this purpose, each scenario string is programmed with a “self-destruct” trigger. Putting all this together, when conscious awareness is achieved and the command to “stop” is given, the trigger is pulled and the action ceases. To a human’s rather sluggish concept of time, this appears to happen instantaneously. However, within the time constraints of quantum physics precision, the stretch of time is eonic.
Driving is a good example of an activity that doesn’t allow for the luxury of a seven to ten second period of time to prepare for an action. It demands a constant, ongoing flow of behavior. To this end, the brain must have a massive amount of information. This data bank of driving information begins as a child observes others driving and proceeds on through driving school and behind the wheel practice. Often times when confronted with immediate demands to avoid an accident, the driver feels like they have acted instinctively; without conscious thought, and quite frankly, they have. It isn’t authentic instinct because the data is not innately present but placed there via experience. This is why an individual needs to practice. This is why some people are better able to avoid accidents. Genetics has given some better hardware to work with, and some have taken more time and have been given more encouragement to develop programs, mental disciplines, and are thus able to provide substantially more data. This same principle is why some become great tennis players, great musicians, great scientists, et. cetera. That the brain is an incredible manipulator of data is considerable understatement.
One can go on confusing the issue by talking about mind and conscious will and other mindboggling minutia, but the two profound bits of Knowledge gleaned from these studies are:
• conscious awareness is a function of the brain, and
• brain function precedes conscious awareness.
Unfortunately, as soon as free-will and self-autonomy are inserted into the discussion, the discussion becomes emotional. [This phenomenon itself is a piece of valuable information. ] It begs a disciplined empiricism to hold these emotions at bay and accept what science is telling us. The following is an except from a prose piece exploring this free-will/determined universe dilemma.
Because man cannot explain the complexity of the physics,
or harness it with interrelated mathematical equations and formulas,
do we just assume the cloud is deciding to move here,
changes its mind and then moves over there,
and then to another place, and another, and another?
Do we assume the cloud is making decisions?
We quite understandably assume there is some magical difference,
some supernatural anointing,
some gift given by the gods or god,
that differentiates between the natural phenomenon of clouds,
and the natural phenomenon of human experience.
If clouds are beyond man’s ability to explain,
how much more is man beyond his own ability to explain?
Because man cannot explain the complexity of the physics,
or harness it with interrelated mathematical equations and formulas,
do we just assume humans are deciding to move here,
changing their minds and then moving over there,
and then to another place, and another, and another?
Do we assume the human is making decisions?
or,
is human behavior simply an exponentially more complex,
cloud?
All of this is exciting and intriguing, but when laid along side mankind’s race towards extinction it is rather akin to arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Fairly soon, if mankind does not seriously address the foundations of its dysfunctional, un-natural behavior, the number of angels and the conscious-mind distraction really won’t matter. Nothing; absolutely nothing will matter! Polar bears be damned! Very soon it will be our heads that roll!
Following are five provocative and substantial realities regarding determined universe philosophy. Taken together, they don’t leave much wiggle room.
• Soon and colleagues paper: By all means, read the paper yourself. Following are some excerpts from the concluding paragraph of this paper. “Taken together, two specific regions in the frontal and parietal cortex of the human brain had considerable information that predicted the outcome of a motor decision the subject had not yet consciously made. This suggests that when the subject’s decision reached awareness it had been influenced by unconscious brain activity for up to 10s… Our results go substantially further than those of previous studies by showing that the earliest predictive information is encoded in specific regions of frontopolar and parietal cortex, and not in SMA. Also, in contrast with most previous studies, the preparatory time period reveals that this prior activity is not an unspecific preparation of a response. Instead, it specifically encodes how a subject is going to decide. This substantially extends previous work that has shown that BA10 is involved in storage of conscious action plans and shifts in strategy following negative feedback. Thus, a network of high-level control areas can begin to shape an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.”
• History: Historically, mankind’s societies, civilizations and institutions have been grounded in an intuitive free-will social mindset, fraught with unconscionable dysfunction and a dependable example of cyclic collapse. About all that can be guaranteed regarding Homo sapiens social constructions is that they will not last.
• Stability of mathematic disciplines and the natural and physical sciences as opposed to the instability of the social sciences: When mankind’s mathematic and science disciplines submitted to determined universe principles, (aka. natural and physical laws, The Scientific Method, provable Knowledge, empirical Truth), they each experienced dynamic stability, and while the social structures around them could be guaranteed to crumbled, they remained constant and intact.
• Natural sequencing: Really; how can you be aware of an event before it happens? And remember, thought is just as much a physics-based event as wiggling your big toe is. How can one be conscious of something before there is something to be conscious of?
• The lesson of pain: We’ve all heard it said, “Pain is the great teacher.” A child touches a hot stove. Pain tells the child to stop touching stoves. A man hits his thumb with a hammer. Pain tells the man not to hit his thumb with a hammer. In a thoroughly basic sense, the existence of pain is informing us that something within our experience should not be done again; that something is wrong; that we need to examine our past experience and seek to discover the source of our pain. For the child and man mentioned above, the source of pain is fairly obvious. When the pain involves the complex interacting of communities, states and nations, the source is not as obvious, but the principle is just as true. Mankind’s social relationships have been saturated in pain and agony from the get-go! They have also been saturated with an intuitive free-will social mindset from the get-go! The source of our social pain is embedded so deeply within our social psyche, we have come to believe it belongs there; it’s just a part of life; it simply must be accepted. That kind of reasoning would keep a child’s hand on a hot burner and a carpenter’s fingers would be so mangled he would have no ability to hold a nail. Taken to extremes over centuries and millennia, the man and the child would be destroyed. This is the point at which mankind finds itself today. As a global society, we can either learn the simple lesson of pain, or follow the buffalo ahead of us over the cliff. Soon and Libet, historical patterns, a brief tallying of those structures that are stable and those structures that are not, simple logic, and the lesson of pain; taken together, they are offering us a path away from the brink of global extermination; the extinction of life on this planet, if not the universe. If they could scream, they would be screaming. Unfortunately, they cannot. The cacophony of a society addicted to their disease easily drowns out the soft voice of hope. For the life of me, I cannot get anyone to listen. Dr. John Bradshaw, while standing on the shore of the St. Lawrence River in Toronto Canada, watched a grand flock of geese flying north. It was late fall. He made this observation: “It is possible for everyone to be going in the wrong direction.”
• the intuitive nature of free-will: What does free-will offer in its defense? Boil all the convoluted arguments down to their essence and this is the driving force behind what they are saying: Dang! It sure seems like I’m in control!
Transforming our societies from a free-will social mindset to a determined universe mindset has incredibly beneficial potential. Determined universe philosophy has had considerable bad press. In reality, determined universe philosophy is much more protective than its acidic counterpart. The realities of a determined universe are the subject of my website: http://www.beneficentparentalism.com. I’ll give you two quotes from Albert Einstein and then I’m gone.
“Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free, but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion.” Albert Einstein
“I do not believe in free-will. Schopenhauer’s words, ‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants,’ accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free-will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men [and women] too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.” Albert Einstein, My Credo
I apologize. My footnotes didn’t survive the transfer from my word processor. However, just about everything I have expressed is a part of my website in one form or another.
Blessings,
Ronald K. Olson
January 1, 2010, 11:02 pm27. Ronald K. Olson says:
January 3, 2010
Sunday
9:14 a.m.
In this website’s biography of Francis Crick I ran across this parapgraph:
“Often when we make a complex decision or draw up an explicit plan, we weigh the factors and consider possible events consciously in our minds, and it seems very hard to believe that this kind of process, which surely bears a remarkable resemblance to decision-making, is not ultimately responsible for the plan or decision which is eventually arrived at. Indeed, I think most people believe that making decisions and plans, and allowing human beings to rise above the influence of their immediate current environment, is exactly what consciousness is for.”
The mistake here is thinking that mental processes, thinking thoughts, are somehow different from wiggling our big toe. They aren’t. The only difference is the end product. In the case of the big toe, brain function creates the choreography, conscious awareness is informed and the big toe wiggles. In the case of thoughts, brain function inspired mental processes juggle and organize the data one packaged thought at a time, awareness is informed, and we mentally visualize the thought. In each case the velocity of quantum level physics causes the individual to “feel” like they are the instigator of the behaviour. Thinking is a bit more confusing due to the fact the end product lies somewhere inside our head. However, both are equally determined before they enter conscious awareness.
That people “believe” they are making decisions is the crux of our social dysfunction. This “belief” allows an individual to “assume” social inequalities, assign culpability, condemn, punish, and victimize. When one reads this, the natural inclination is towards an outward focus; how this phenomenon infects our relationships with others, but the real devastation occurs within the person’s relationship with him, or herself. The former causes social strife; the latter causes mental illness. If free-will were a valid mindset, we would just have to learn how to live with it, which is what mankind has unsuccessfully been doing throughout its history. Aligning ourselves with determined universe principles eliminates inequalities, culpability, condemnation, punishment and thus, victimization. If the determined universe mindset is valid, we will just have to learn how to live with it, and the sooner the better.
Blessings,
Ronald K. Olson
January 3, 2010, 2:46 pm28. John davey says:
“In each case the velocity of quantum level physics causes the individual to “feel” like they are the instigator of the behaviour.”
Forgive, me, but this statement makes no sense scientifically – or for that matter in any sense. There is no proven theory that links a specific quantum physics phenomena to consciousness outside of the normal quantum activity of the brain’s constituent cells. Quantum physics is I fear now a ‘weird box’ into which all inexplicable events get thrown.
We are tied down by the idea of free will – but we are also tied down by the idea of reductive physics. Both have holes in them. It is not possible to generate semantic from a reductive and de facto syntactical reductionism – in other words, reductive physics is all about numbers but the universe is made of stuff. Physics and the universe have no conjunction and shall remain forever apart, making physics at least an infinite discipline.
And there is certainly no leap from reductionism to conscious mental phenomena – another hole in reductionism, perhaps its biggest one. Hence the willingness of so many otherwise sane, educate people to pretend that somehow it doesn’t exist. The best bet is that currently we know nothing about brain function and science and time will elucidate for us. Free will(or the sense of it), consciousness – reductive physics has to accomodate them – not the other way about !
January 17, 2010, 1:42 pm29. Ronald K. Olson says:
January 31, 2010
Sunday
7:37 p.m.
The clinical study of Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze, and John-Dylan Haynes presented in April of 2008 [rifters.com/real/articles/NatureNeuroScience_Soon_et_al.pdf] in which they used state of the art imaging technology to detect electrical pulses in specific regions of the brain, historically accepted to be evidence of brain activity; their conclusions established an exact sequence. Quoting from their concluding paragraph, the numbering is mine: “(1.) …the earliest unconscious precursors of the motor decision originated in frontopolar cortex, (2.) from where theyinfluenced the buildup of decision-related information in the precuneus and (3.) later in SMA, where it remained unconscious for up to a few seconds.” (4.) Conscious awareness comes next and (5.) the behavior concludes the sequence. A whole lot of specific and predictive physiological activity occurs within the brain before an individual becomes conscious of the upcoming behavior. The time between conscious awareness and behavior is a fraction of a second. In Libet’s study it was .327 sec. There is nothing sluggish about the whole affair. That the intricacies of brain function, dynamic quantum level activity, are able to operate at such extraordinary speeds, when behavior occurs a third of a second after the individual becomes consciously aware of the already thoroughly encoded behavior there is produced an irresistible sense of control, a tantalizing impression that one possesses self-autonomy. This sense of control is intuitive and not physiologically supported. In the twenty-five years separating Libet’s study and Chun Siong Soon and colleagues’ study, imaging technology has advanced to a level that thoroughly addresses the loose ends Libet left hanging in the wind.
I guess what I would like to ask is: What empirical evidence is there that provides factual support for free-will to the same extent Libet’s and Soon and Colleagues’ studies provide factual support for a determined universe? Before Libet and, more profoundly, Soon and his three colleagues, free-will and determine universe paradigms were equally dependent on convoluted philosophical arguments. Ones bias pretty much predicted how one would interpret existing arguments. That is no longer the case. Or is it? Is there any hard authoritative evidence supporting free-will?
February 1, 2010, 12:39 am30. Ronald K. Olson says:
February 1, 2010
Monday
5:42 p.m.
If conscious awareness is merely a product of brain function, what is the causal mass that is the driving force behind mankind’s behaviors?
The driving force behind mankind’s behaviors, behind all universal experience, is the existential totality of all previous universal experience. No inconsequential mass! This is true for all universal elements, intricacies, single unit subsets, the gargantuan and the subatomic, as well as mankind. A free-will mindset will receive this and feel demeaned, compromised, minimized, puppetized. However, this reality is anything but demeaning.
Mankind tends to view itself in isolation; as a species and individually. However, within the context of our universe, nothing functions in isolation. There is an inescapable delightfully intimate connectedness. The closest metaphor I can imagine is the hair on our head. Each hair has a singular expression, but each hair is an extension of the body. It functions in relationship to the functioning body and though the hair might believe otherwise, not as an autonomous self. A body’s dietary history and general health can be traced by examining a hair on our head, the length of the hair being the only limitation. In accord with determinist concepts, each of us is a singular function of the functioning whole; a hair on a universal head.
All previous universal experience is funneled into the individual at conception and then ongoing universal experience forms the individual from that point on. The totality of universal experience is the driving force within the whole of our body. Our thoughts and behaviors as well as our life sustaining bodily functions are the product of all previous universal experience. The linkage is inexorable. It is the will of the universe and not an autonomous free and independent human will that drives our thoughts and our actions. Like a plodding behemoth, the universe is going somewhere. Nothing can inhibit its progress; not even mankind’s notion of a free and independent will. To be a part of this journey is exhilarating! It is not demeaning in the least. It is excruciatingly fantastic! That every moment of our singular existence is the culmination of eons of universal experience establishes each and every one of us as irreplicably unique, special, perhaps even sacred! Venerable majesty is ours by simply being.
There is a sense of awareness present in many advanced species. It is a primitive form of conscious awareness, but indeed, mankind’s sense of conscious awareness could itself be described as primitive. Evolutionary processes being what they are, the “desired” purpose for this developing sense of consciousness is yet to be realized. Perhaps it will just be an entertaining evolutionary trail road that ends in some future slough; its skeletal remains housed beside those of the dinosaurs in museums of a humble, and therefore, successful species. Or, perhaps it will some day allow life to blossom into some extravagant never before imagined flower. We now stand on the experiential cusp which will determine mankind’s potential. Presently, conscious awareness just seems to be getting in the way, but my ability to decipher laid along side this plodding behemoth’s ability to cipher is really quite laughable!
Of course, no birth is without its terrors. No era of metamorphic change is welcomed with open arms regardless of how unequivocally benevolent that change may be. Mankind has invested all that it is; has established its every security institution and social structure on the belief that unlike all other entities it possesses a free and independent will. Arrogance has never been our weak suit! Many of nature’s parental systems demand the sacrificial exhaustion of the parent: salmon, octopus, grasses, etc. For mankind, this may be the case. However, in the case of mankind, the irony is: The present generation’s parental behavior is cannibalistically intent on destroying its progeny. To survive, some near future generation of mankind must escape the soul felt intent of its parent generation. The present parental mindset must die for future generations to have even the hope of life. This is no small task. Indeed, it may be an impossible task!
What is the root of this unintentioned parental malevolence? Why is it that mankind so intensely demands the demise of its children? Each of us, as is true of all universal entities, is the sum total of all previous universal experience. This means each of us is an expression of the greater universal intent. Which means every one of our behaviors is determined by external forces and not by some imagined sense of self-determination. Each of us is dependent on external realities for our thoughts and actions. A hair does not wag the head. The head wags the hair. Only external realities affect our experience. The only entity having no dynamic impact on an individual’s experiential reality is the individual him, her, or itself. All that an individual is results from external forces and not from any smidgeon of internal inertia. Not even the whiff of self-autonomy exists.
This is incomprehensible and anathema to contemporary grown-up thinking. This reality annihilates all culpability driven belief systems. It castrates those who derive their sense of accomplished personhood from their gift of a superiorly disciplined mind. It makes thieves and paupers of those who sit pompously on great mountains of insane wealth. It calls into question our methods of dealing with individuals who default and terrorize society. It damns our educational practices. It turns the present and all past parental human generations in-side-out and up-side-down and leaves them gasping as fish caught in a shrinking tidal pool. This is old hat for all but Homo sapiens. It is holy terror for mankind as it presently exists!
Do our progeny; do our children have a future? Probably not! Unless this plodding behemoth has a last minute trick up its sleeve, mankind’s future generations of children most definitely do not have a future. Mankind’s only hope rests in the minds of those able to rein in their emotions and calculatedly discuss these realities.
I feel a need to apologize for seemingly monopolizing this particular blog. As you can tell from what I have shared, I see this particular issue as being critical for the survival of our species and if nuclear proliferation continues its present course, possibly all life forms on our planet. I am an optimist! No! Really! Universal experience has invested so much getting us to where we are. We simply need to respond intelligently to the Knowledge that already exists. We will. That’s what websites like this one are intent on doing.
rko
February 4, 2010, 2:27 pm31. John davey says:
“What empirical evidence is there that provides factual support for free-will to the same extent Libet’s and Soon and Colleagues’ studies provide factual support for a determined universe”
But even if this science is accepted ( and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be) they don’t provide any evidence for a determined universe, at least not as you have explained it.They indicate that consciousness follows after the brain’s lower level ‘decision’ has been made but they make no claim as to the deterministic status of the initial subconscious decision. This science says absolutely nothing about freewill or determinism, but it does provide interesting information about the position of consciousness in the scheme of the human brain. My own appreciation of my own consciousness is that just about every action I take in the course of a day, from typing an individual letter of a keyboard to drinking a cup of tea, I inject very little conscious effort into I merely watch these events as my brain just does them. That still doesn’t mean I am predetermined in everything I do, or I couldn’t have done things some other way.
And e-m radiation, even in non-quantum scope, travels at 3×10^8 m/s. That is more than adequate to account for the speed of the brain and requires no magic ‘quantum’ effects. I’m not arguing that there are no quantum effects, incidentally – merely pointing out there isnt the remotest piece of evidence suggesting it.
February 6, 2010, 6:34 pm32. Vicente says:
Libet and similar experiments address very simple decision making schemes, like pushing or not a button in which the brain might be forced to use “toss a coin” like mechanisms. For which reason should or should I not press the button. I understand the main point is the time lag between the decision is observed by the instrument (that in not very clear by the way), and the individual is aware of it. This could be due to the activation of brain mechanism for “toss a coin” cases.
Anyway, my point is that these experiences cannot be necessarily extendeded to real life scenarios, were very complex decisions have to be made, with many factors to consider, sometimes in very short time. This are the cases were free will is interesting, were intentionality makes sense, were responsibility might have a meaning.
I don’t know if there is something like free will for human beings, but I don’t think that Libet kind of experiments are of any use for this question. Better read Spinoza.
February 6, 2010, 9:35 pm33. Ronald says:
http://rifters.com/real/articles/NatureNeuroScience_Soon_et_al.pdf
February 8, 2010, 1:35 am34. Ronald K. Olson says:
I tried to give the website address for Soon and colleagues’ 2008 paper “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” earlier, but I missed a couple letters. This one should do the trick! http://rifters.com/real/articles/NatureNeuroScience_Soon_et_al.pdf You may be more familiar with clinical papers than I am, so you may be able to digest the clinical explanations. I tended to draw more from the extract, the introductory paragraph and the concluding paragraph. To me they seem to be saying that preparatory brain function and conscious awareness are caused by brain activity in specific regions of the brain. John, are you saying there is no proof that this activity within the brain is physics based; is subject to the laws of physics and therefore determined by coherent forces at the molecular level and lower? If you could explain that a little more, I’d be appreciative. Got to go…
rko
February 8, 2010, 1:56 am