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The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#11

Post by mcguire »

This kind of research shows how deeply dualism is ingrained in philosophy and the cognitive sciences.

Picture this: You decide to move your hand, then you move your hand. An observer using fMRI or somesuch notes that they observe neural activity before you report making the decision, and they can even predict where and how you are going to move from observations of neural behavior.

If you are a materialist, how is this surprising? Of course neural activity precedes you being conscious of making a decision and taking an action---that is the mechanism by which you make a decision and take the action. What does it have to do with free will? Not very much, if anything. It only becomes a problem if you are a dualist and believe any conscious, free-will-iferous activity must come from an a-material, imperceptible "soul".

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#12

Post by wruza »

twodave wrote: post #4

This sort of debate always struck me as nonsense. If our actions are not derived of our own free will, but just exist as a small part of nature, then if you follow that thread far enough you’ll understand that all reason and truth would also be invalid, being just the effect to some coincidental cause. This incidentally would render theories about the subject of free will invalid as well. Thus if there is no free wil…

I’m interested in topic. Can you please expand a little or point to a book/idea that does? The “reason and truth” part specifically. Why truth would be invalid if there exist only complex finite automata? Can’t complex enough entities reason about this system while being a part of it, coincidentally being able to do that without contradiction?

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#13

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

ThalesX wrote: post #7
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

I find attempts to disprove free will incredibly boring. If there is no free will, then everything the investigators wrote and did is the result of some deterministic (or random) process which doesn’t have anything to do with logic or evidence and whether or not people accept the conclusion is also independent of reason and logic. Without at least the illusion of free will, there cannot be any discussion or argument,…

I’m not sure I understand this counter argument. Surely we can rationalize in a deterministic universe without having free will to make independent decisions based on objective rationalizations. What about understanding the clock structure? Does that limit my ability to reason about time? Or about digital clocks? Or to be upset at someone for not showing up when I was expecting them to.

What do you mean by “rationalize”?

What is the difference between rational and irrational in a deterministic universe?

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#14

Post by [deleted] »

twodave wrote: post #4

This sort of debate always struck me as nonsense. If our actions are not derived of our own free will, but just exist as a small part of nature, then if you follow that thread far enough you’ll understand that all reason and truth would also be invalid, being just the effect to some coincidental cause. This incidentally would render theories about the subject of free will invalid as well. Thus if there is no free wil…

[deleted]

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#15

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

mcguire wrote: post #11

This kind of research shows how deeply dualism is ingrained in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Picture this: You decide to move your hand, then you move your hand. An observer using fMRI or somesuch notes that they observe neural activity before you report making the decision, and they can even predict where and how you are going to move from observations of neural behavior. If you are a materialist, how is th…

I think a modern dualist would view this as hardware vs software.

If all were able to measure were voltage levels on a CPU, you would say all computing is inevitably bound to changing electrical voltages/currents. However, you would miss out on all the math and algorithms and the beauty and richness that is software.

A dualist might see the “soul” as the software that the physical brain executes. Of course, if all you have access to is brain electrical measurements, you see no distinction. However, if you look inside yourself with introspection, you will see a richness of ideas, thoughts, motivations that actually drive the physical brain.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#16

Post by [deleted] »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

I find attempts to disprove free will incredibly boring. If there is no free will, then everything the investigators wrote and did is the result of some deterministic (or random) process which doesn’t have anything to do with logic or evidence and whether or not people accept the conclusion is also independent of reason and logic. Without at least the illusion of free will, there cannot be any discussion or argument,…

[deleted]

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#17

Post by Bluestein »

mcguire wrote: post #11

This kind of research shows how deeply dualism is ingrained in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Picture this: You decide to move your hand, then you move your hand. An observer using fMRI or somesuch notes that they observe neural activity before you report making the decision, and they can even predict where and how you are going to move from observations of neural behavior. If you are a materialist, how is th…

"free-will-iferous". (New fav word :)

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#18

Post by laszlokorte »

I guess free will just means that making a decision is a chaotic process that can broadly be influenced from the outside but in the end can not be preditected up to the moment the result is observed. This then in turn is observed as in that the decision was not completely determined by an outside signal so it is concluded that it must have been free.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#19

Post by cardanome »

twodave wrote: post #4

This sort of debate always struck me as nonsense. If our actions are not derived of our own free will, but just exist as a small part of nature, then if you follow that thread far enough you’ll understand that all reason and truth would also be invalid, being just the effect to some coincidental cause. This incidentally would render theories about the subject of free will invalid as well. Thus if there is no free wil…

A deterministic machine is still able to react based on external stimulus and able to reason about the world and itself.

And we don't even need to go the full determinism route to disprove free will. What can free will be other than an illusion? Am I really deciding to be hungry, to want companionship, and so on? Am I simply doing what needs to be done to fulfill my needs while my brain is inventing reasons? What am I other that environmental factor, genetics, and maybe random noise? Nothing.

Objective truth and reality exists independent of any person having a free will or not.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#20

Post by rory »

cortesoft wrote: post #8

The idea that this experiment would disprove free will seems to rely on thinking that the 'conscious' mind is somehow separate from your physical brain, and free will is the act of your non-physical consciousness telling your body to move. This seems like nonsense to me. Your brain waves are the not caused by thoughts, they ARE your thoughts. Of course they are present before you are conscious of your decision to mov…

I think some _would_ define free will as necessarily separate from physical processes in the brain. Absent the existence some kind of magical soul-like concept, the free will debate in general seems like more of a semantic argument than a real philosophical one.
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