[Storm]

About a year and a half ago, scientists performed an experiment where they asked subjects to push a button with the right or left hand. The scientists hooked up the subjects to a neuron machine. The subjects were to mark down when they consciously decided to push the button. The neuron machine showed that the part of the brain which would move the arm lit up a full 10 seconds before the person consciously decided to push the button.

More detail can be found here:
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At first glance, it seems pretty damning evidence against free will. However, the end of the article notes that it might be stronger evidence for free will, since it shows we kind of a "filter" on our instincts.

I wish the scientists had asked the subjects to write down whether or not they changed their mind. If we can "cancel" the decision, it would seem free will exists. If the light turns off before we cancel the decision, it seems it wouldn't. Also, does this only apply to decisions about physical movement? What, if anything, does this imply for more complicated decisions, like whether to get married or have children or take a job?

What do you think the implications are for free will after this experiment?

[phej]

idk. I think that all this experiment proves is that we really don't know where the decision making circuits are.

[LaoTzu]

	Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	However, the end of the article notes that it might be stronger evidence for free will, since it shows we kind of a "filter" on our instincts.

I think this is more likely.

Did the study take into account the free will of those people who declined to do the experiment?

[Storm]

	Originally Posted by LaoTzu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Did the study take into account the free will of those people who declined to do the experiment?

No, there wasn't any mention of them.

[dungeonguy88]

I would dearly like to think that free will, was indeed a truth. However, the more I think about it the more I have to consider how much of our decision making process, is brought about by chemical interactions, from the cellular to as far gone as past the atomic level, by an extended form of cause and effect, and the effects of purported by the phenomena quantum mechanics attempts to explain. How much of our behavior is simple cause and effect? How many of our decisions are decided by our environments, genetics, acquired knowledge, and the ripples of "decisions" made by others that came before us?...I don't know

[Storm]

	Originally Posted by dungeonguy88 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I would dearly like to think that free will, was indeed a truth. However, the more I think about it the more I have to consider how much of our decision making process, is brought about by chemical interactions, [

I've never thought the mere fact that we can measure changing chemical levels in the brain is an absolute argument against free will. It could be the result of our decisions, and not the cause.

For example, if we get angry the brain then releases the "angry" chemical - not the brain release the "angry" chemical causing us to be angry.

Or it could be a more complicated interplay - some sort of input (being hit) cause the release of the "angry" chemical but then we consciously choose to not allow that anger to influence us - resulting in the brain releasing a counter chemical or the angry chemical to stop being released and slowly fade. This would explain why people can learn to control their emotions through mental exercises. In this case, initial instinctual reactions are forced upon us - but after that we can freely choose how to deal.

A person practiced enough in countering the initial involuntary reaction could teach the brain not to release the chemical at all. Once again, giving us free reign over our mind.

Of course, in some cases the involuntary release of these chemicals could be SO overpowering that the individual is unable to counter them - example would be severe cases of OCD or clinical depression. Such people will often lament that they do not have control over their actions - they want to stop it by they are powerless. This doesn't mean free will does not exist, but that free will must fight against the involuntary chemical releases of the brain.

[yoginimama]

I do not believe we have free will as it has traditionally been defined. Not at all.

However...the conscious mind is by no means totally out of the loop. If it's very shocked or unhappy with the unconscious decisions it's helplessly carrying out, it can send "NO!!" messages to the unconscious brain, with the result that it will shortly find itself googling AA or Weight Watchers or self-help books or mental health services or whatever. That comes from the unconscious brain too, but based on feedback from the conscious. We may not really be making our own decisions...but we do get to send a vote back to the secret council
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##

In the case of mental illness, whether thought or affective disorder, maybe the key sign is that that process gets screwed up...the messages get garbled between the two parts of the brain. The unconscious totally ignores the input from the forebrain, or sends forward ineffective responses, OR the ability of the conscious to understand and implement them is compromised. So if a person is chronically underachieving or just not seeming to connect the dots, maybe that's almost more of a red flag for mental illness than mood or one-sided conversations.

[Delarge]

The notion of conscious will is a persistent illusion that results from our tendency to infer causal relationships where they don't exist. The co-incidence of "feeling" will and a behavioural output serves as reinforcement.

I find that many people confuse rationality for free will. This is reflected by the fact that most don't regard infants as possessing the "freedom" to will, the same is also true of those suffering from advanced dementia. The neopallium reasons, generates a series of options and proceeds to select an option. There is likely no supernatural element involved in this process that allows us to escape the causal chain and originate a cause or select an option. Determinism and indeterminism are both incompatible with such an ability.

[stasis]

Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

About a year and a half ago, scientists performed an experiment where they asked subjects to push a button with the right or left hand. The scientists hooked up the subjects to a neuron machine. The subjects were to mark down when they consciously decided to push the button. The neuron machine showed that the part of the brain which would move the arm lit up a full 10 seconds before the person consciously decided to push the button.

When choosing between one option and another option, a person is performing comparative analysis. When they deem this analysis to be complete, whatever the analysis may have entailed, they consider themselves to have decided. In this experiment, though, the subjects were given nothing to analyze but their own whimsy. They were instructed to select an option "at random". It follows that a selection may be made instantaneously, as there isn't really anything new to operate over, and that the subject can then consider his or her selection. Since there isn't anything with which to operate other than the selection itself, what would cause a subject to alter that selection after the fact - consider it though they might? It appears to me that the results suggest subjects eventually decided to go with their first arbitrary impulse 70% of the time. The other 30% of the time, they went with a second arbitrary impulse.

More like a study of rates of second guessing.

I think that without a theory of consciousness orienting these results, they can tell us nothing one way or another about free will. That type of blind empiricism is something that seems to plague neurology-aided psychology today, culminating in the likes of antidepressants that seem to sort of "work" without any penetrating knowledge of how or why. Trial and error yield results, not understanding. Newton's classical mechanics can't be found in an apple. It is impossible to empirically falsify without a theoretical model of the conditions, and models of this type aren't printed on the objects they describe.

Unless one imagines that there's a discrete Will Organ in the brain whose function is or is not free (whatever "free" means - free from what, exactly?), any expression of will is the function of the brain as a system composed of a series of discrete, interrelated parts. So the quality of will, and of consciousness in general for that matter, is a type of structural interplay between these parts. Researchers seeking to test subjects for free will need to abstract this interplay in theory and then design an experiment based upon what is predicted.

[Dodeca]

Free will is often denoted to be associated with religious and moral responsibility. I took a philosophy class once and came to the conclusion that this debate is stupid. Its no more a mater of free will for a person to act the way they do than for an animal. Its all in the relationship between the brain and its environment. Simple and clear cut. If your bad at sports, its your brain. If you cant jump 300 feet in the air, its gravity.

[dungeonguy88]

Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I've never thought the mere fact that we can measure changing chemical levels in the brain is an absolute argument against free will. It could be the result of our decisions, and not the cause. For example, if we get angry the brain then releases the "angry" chemical - not the brain release the "angry" chemical causing us to be angry. Or it could be a more complicated interplay - some sort of input (being hit) cause the release of the "angry" chemical but then we consciously choose to not allow that anger to influence us - resulting in the brain releasing a counter chemical or the angry chemical to stop being released and slowly fade. This would explain why people can learn to control their emotions through mental exercises. In this case, initial instinctual reactions are forced upon us - but after that we can freely choose how to deal. A person practiced enough in countering the initial involuntary reaction could teach the brain not to release the chemical at all. Once again, giving us free reign over our mind. Of course, in some cases the involuntary release of these chemicals could be SO overpowering that the individual is unable to counter them - example would be severe cases of OCD or clinical depression. Such people will often lament that they do not have control over their actions - they want to stop it by they are powerless. This doesn't mean free will does not exist, but that free will must fight against the involuntary chemical releases of the brain.

Precisely why I decided against only citing internal chemical reactions against free will. I recognize that there are more than a few factors that constitute our being; chemical reactions aren't even the basis over thought, they merely interact with the pathways that serve as the conduits for the electrical impulses that are our thought.

[Nemesis]

	Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I've never thought the mere fact that we can measure changing chemical levels in the brain is an absolute argument against free will. It could be the result of our decisions, and not the cause.

Exactly. Plus, if the brain is working in a deterministic manner, it's doing so in an incredibly complex system of causal chains. Watching chemicals come and go, although helpful, won't give you any sort of smoking gun in answering questions about free-will.

Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Or it could be a more complicated interplay - some sort of input (being hit) cause the release of the "angry" chemical but then we consciously choose to not allow that anger to influence us - resulting in the brain releasing a counter chemical or the angry chemical to stop being released and slowly fade. This would explain why people can learn to control their emotions through mental exercises. In this case, initial instinctual reactions are forced upon us - but after that we can freely choose how to deal.

To throw a monkey wrench in here; any mechanism that moderates the release of the angry chemical in response to the hit, may very well be deterministic as well.

[radames]

Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I've never thought the mere fact that we can measure changing chemical levels in the brain is an absolute argument against free will. It could be the result of our decisions, and not the cause. For example, if we get angry the brain then releases the "angry" chemical - not the brain release the "angry" chemical causing us to be angry. Or it could be a more complicated interplay - some sort of input (being hit) cause the release of the "angry" chemical but then we consciously choose to not allow that anger to influence us - resulting in the brain releasing a counter chemical or the angry chemical to stop being released and slowly fade. This would explain why people can learn to control their emotions through mental exercises. In this case, initial instinctual reactions are forced upon us - but after that we can freely choose how to deal. A person practiced enough in countering the initial involuntary reaction could teach the brain not to release the chemical at all. Once again, giving us free reign over our mind. Of course, in some cases the involuntary release of these chemicals could be SO overpowering that the individual is unable to counter them - example would be severe cases of OCD or clinical depression. Such people will often lament that they do not have control over their actions - they want to stop it by they are powerless. This doesn't mean free will does not exist, but that free will must fight against the involuntary chemical releases of the brain.

This struck a chord in me because I am at the place where if I got angry in a situation it usually wouldn't be the original cause that would bring me to be angry but my resistance of the first stimuli that brought about the anger being followed up by something else that overwhelmed that resistance and creating a new anger on top of the originally quenched anger. I actually got angry at the second set of variables which challenged my resistance to the first anger rather than the original variables that caused the first anger.

We are complicated people.

---------- Post added 01-12-2010 at 02:21 PM ----------

I wonder if this test was to determine if we could make a decision on a whim rather than analyzing the reason for the test with a myriad of other second-guessing variables.

If they told us to simply go with our first impulse then they could have been seeking another test result rather than considering that we would second-guess ourselves and eventually come about a decision where we would feel "in control" of our autonomous reactions.

Is this really a test of control? Is there a deeper test to this test?