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Free Will Libet

Free Will And Libet

You're getting this assignment because you've written a paper that discusses, but which does not correctly interpret, the experiments of Dr. Benjamin Libet. (Don't feel bad about not properly understanding Libet's results. Almost nobody does. In fact, I might be the only person around who understands this stuff.)

Libet's results demonstrated, over and over again, that people became aware that they had chosen to perform an action after they made the choice and, in fact, after they had performed the act itself. Some muddle-headed individuals interpret this as proving that people act before they have made a decision to act but it should be clear that this does not follow at all.

The muddle occurs because these individuals assume, with out any argument at all, that a willed decision has to occur in consciousness in order for it to be a willed decision. This is not so. In order for a decision to be willed, it just has to be willed. Consciousness need not enter into it at all. Humans do lots of things without being aware that they're doing them. All of these things are willed, whether we're consciously aware of willing them or not.

In fact, it seems rather bizarre to think that consciousness is involved in the willing of actions at all.

Consciousness is, obviously, the awareness of various things. Will, again obviously, is the determining by the self of what the self is going to try to do. Being aware of things and determining actions are two very different kinds of functions, and it is logically impossible for them to be performed by the same piece of neurological machinery. Thus it makes sense that willing actions and becoming conscious of things are performed by two different pieces of neurological machinery. And since you can't be aware of something before it happens, it also makes sense that deciding to do something takes place before becoming aware that one has decided. What's so hard about that?

Here is an example of the kind of muddy thinking I'm talking about. (From Wikipedia) "Libet's findings suggest that decisions made by a subject are first being made on a subconscious level and only afterward being translated into a "conscious decision", and that the subject's belief that it occurred at the behest of her will was only due to her retrospective perspective on the event."

Notice that the quote says quite clearly (and correctly) that "decisions made by a subject are first being made on a subconscious level." Obviously, this is true. The decision is made, by the decision making part(s) of the brain. These part(s) are obviously not the parts of your brain that do consciousness, so it makes sense to say that the decison takes place on the subconscious level of your mind.

Then the quote goes a bit wonky. It says "only afterward being translated into a "conscious decision"," The "only afterward" but is fine, but what is a "conscious decision?" I mean, I know what descisions are, and I know what being conscious is, but being conscious of something is different from making a decision, so there's no such thing as a conscious decision. (I think the writer should have said "only afterward does the actor become conscious of making his decision." That would make sense.)

And then the quote leaps out into la-la land. It says "the subject's belief that it occurred at the behest of her will was only due to her retrospective perspective on the event." Say what? Why wouldn't the subject's belief that it occurred at the behest of her will be due to the fact that the person who made the (unconcious) decision to move was in fact herself? Does the writer give us any reason to think that the decision was not made? Does the writer give us any reason to think that somebody else's brain made the decision? Does the writer give us any reason to think that the subject's brain did not make the decision? No, no and no! The subject herself made the decision, and so her belief that she made the decision is entirely correct. She made the decision. Nobody else made her do what she did. So it was a free willed decision, and the sequence of experiences is exactly what a proper understanding of neuroscience should lead us to expect.

Free Will Libet

Important Points

1. Remember that "free will" has two components. There's the "will" part, which is a person's ability to to make decisions by use of an organ called the "brain", and there's the "free" part, which is the absence of an external coercive force that prevents the person from doing what they would personally decide to do, if the choice was up to them. When you deny the existence of free will, you must make it clear which part you are denying. So, are you denying that there is a part of the human brain that makes decisions (in which case you must deal with all the neuroscience evidence that says that the human brain actually can and does make decisions), or are you denying that the will is ever free, (in which case you must say what this continuous external coercive force is, and how it is that we never actually notice it preventing us from doing the things we want to do.

2. Remember that the brain is the organ people use to make decisions. If a person's brain makes a decision, that means the person has made the decision. They only way you will ever be able to say that a person made a decision is if they used their brain to make the decision.

3. Remember that consciousness is just being conscious of stuff. The part of the brain that makes you conscious of things is not the part that makes decisions.

4. Remember that it would be really weird if you became aware of a decision BEFORE you made that decision.

5. Remember that consciousness, by itself cannot instigate any behavior. That's done by another part of the brain, often in response to things we are conscious of.

6. Remember that the brain plans things at least partially based on things it is conscious of (duh), but being conscious of something is just being conscious. Planning is done by ANOTHER PART OF THE BRAIN.

7. Remember that thinking that the brain should make decisions after we become conscious of them implies that we can become conscious of something before that thing has happened, which is physically impossible.

8. Remember that thinking that consciousness can effect a decision one is aware of implies that something can affect a thing that has already happened, which is physically impossible.

9. Most importantly, remember that people who disagree with you do not share your weird belief that a decision has to be made by one's consciousness (being aware of things) in order to be free, or willed. People who disagree with you think that decisions just have to be made by one's brain to be willen, and uncoerced to be free.

So, do we have good reason to think that the part of the brain that brings decisions into consciousness has

to be the same bit that makes decisions? Or is it okay for free will if we make decisions unconsciously and then become conscious of what we've decided? Am I right here, or is there a reason why we have to be conscious of our decisions at the very same time that we make those decisions in order for those decisions to be free willed? If you think there is such a reason, please explain exactly what this reason is. (If there's no detailed explanation of this reason, then your paper will get zero points. Repeating "it has to be conscious to be free" over and over again in different words doesn't count as a reason.) read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will, pick one wrong thing the writer says, and explain exactly why it's wrong.