Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
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Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#2To say an argument has been "debunked" implies that the argument holds no credibility, or the rhetorical equivalent of "I'm right, you're wrong." It is an attempt to shut down a discussion and provide fodder for ad-hominem attacks against those who dare to disagree.
In other words, The Atlantic should be ashamed to run a headline like this because it is antithetical to rational discussion.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#3I don't see how the original experiment "debunked" free will. Wouldn't the decision-making process spark neural activity?
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#4I think basically you can disregard any study or article that purports to say that "science" has found why humans behave in a certain manner or that attempts to answer philosophical or social questions using fMRI or EEG.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#5To say an argument has been "debunked" implies that the argument holds no credibility, or the rhetorical equivalent of "I'm right, you're wrong." It is an attempt to shut down a discussion and provide fodder for ad-hominem attacks against those who dare to disagree. In other words, The Atlantic should be ashamed to run a headline like this because it is antithetical to rational discussion.
If the whole argument was based on an experimental result, and that experiment has now been found to be fundamentally flawed and the results of the experiment invalidated, then it seems entirely fine and rational to say that the argument has been debunked.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#6I don't see how the original experiment "debunked" free will. Wouldn't the decision-making process spark neural activity?
Yeah it always seemed like it a shaky argument to me too. Even if people were unable to accurately perceive the timing of their own decisions, that doesn't seem to preclude the idea that people are still consciously making those decisions themselves....
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#7I don't see how the original experiment "debunked" free will. Wouldn't the decision-making process spark neural activity?
The thesis was that taking the action or not taking the action resulted in different EEG patterns, Bereitschaftspotential or not, and that the spike was visible before the person was consciously taking the decision. So it's not just the neural activity from the decision-making process, it's the neural activity from taking a specific decision, seen before the decision is taken by the person. As if the decision was taken by a deeper sub-system.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#8I don't see how the original experiment "debunked" free will. Wouldn't the decision-making process spark neural activity?
I don't see how any kind of scientific experiment could possibly support the concept of free will. If the universe is deterministic, then obviously there is no free will - since humans are part of the universe. If it is non-deterministic then all we can say about events we identify as non-deterministic is that we don't understand them.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#9To say an argument has been "debunked" implies that the argument holds no credibility, or the rhetorical equivalent of "I'm right, you're wrong." It is an attempt to shut down a discussion and provide fodder for ad-hominem attacks against those who dare to disagree. In other words, The Atlantic should be ashamed to run a headline like this because it is antithetical to rational discussion.
Debating on headline that are often chosen or changed by editors to be controversial or more dramatic is waste of time. Magazines do it routinely.
HN sometimes changes headlines to be more correct. Propose one.
Re: Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
#10I don't see how the original experiment "debunked" free will. Wouldn't the decision-making process spark neural activity?
Yeah it always seemed like it a shaky argument to me too. Even if people were unable to accurately perceive the timing of their own decisions, that doesn't seem to preclude the idea that people are still consciously making those decisions themselves....
But humans don't exist in a vacuum, your decision process was programmed into your brain by nature & nurture, and you had no control over either - the decision process for any control you think you might have had was previously programmed into you brain without your choice.