Benjamin Libet and Free Will

Interesting reading.

I think that while it's almost certain that everything in our brain boils down to a biological mechanism, that is completely unimportant to philosophical discussions of free will.

The ONLY thing that free will requires to exist is that we believe that we have free will. If that's the case, then who cares what it comes from?

How is that to believe we have free will is to have free will?

Isn't this sort of information important if we are going to understand the nature of our apparently free will?

Because free will is nothing more than a self-aware internal locus of control, i.e. the knowledge or feeling that we are responsible for our decisions and actions. Entertain the notion that there is some evil puppeteer in the sky who is controlling our every action -- that knowledge would still not convince you that you lacked free will as long as you're in yourself believing that your hand moves because you will it to do so. Your freedom of will consists in the faith you have in this freedom, not in the actual freedom.

I'd argue that understanding "the nature of free will" is not the end point of this kind of research -- at least not unless you can define free will in purely biological terms. It addresses the neurobiological mechanism of decisionmaking. It doesn't address the freedom of it, nor does it address the "will".

Well, the term 'free will' is misleading. Locke long ago criticized the term we so often use.

But for the idea of having conscious control over our actions - Libet's work seems relevant.



So, archaic terminology aside, with respect to decision making and conscious control of decision making - where do we stand?

Or are we in the same boat, regardless of how we term the issue?

I think it's difficult for biology to EVER be on the same page with metaphysics, and in fact it's sort of mutually exclusive. We can find a biological mechanism behind free will, the soul, God, evil, whatever -- but that doesn't alter the philosophical conversation about it. The biology of evil and good are irrelevant to discussions about their meaning to us.

I think that's my attraction to this sort of study - the investigation of human action divorced from metaphysical speculation.

If the biological mechanism behind 'free will' does not leave room for humans to make conscious decision on how to act, such a finding seems significant and a deadly blow to metaphysical speculation about man having free action.

I'm not even sure the philosophical discussion about free will is particularly meaningful. If hard determinism is true, so what? Are we to open the prisons if hard determinism is true? I don't think we should.

Only with respect to God -- but it isn't meaningful in an atheistic context. I think free will is assumed in the absence of God, so it's taken for granted.

Yeah, I mean it doesn't really change the way we run society.

The exception would be a scenario like Minority Report -- say you can predict criminal behavior, not necessarily to arrest someone for an uncommitted crime, but rather you can provide services that decrease risk, etc.

Hi, can I put in a few words here? With much trepidation, of course, given the huge, vexing and seemingly never-ending question of "free will". Libet's work on time delays and conscious awareness of motor action decisions makes us very aware that our minds are machine-based. And I believe it legitimate to say that machines don't have free will, although investigations into chaos and emergence effects from complex physical systems certain can give one pause on that. The question remains, however, whether our minds, if they are ultimately free, are machine-based AND something more.

OK, so my dualistic view on the mind-body problem are starting to come thru here. I would posit that the classic notions of 'free will' require the addition of "something more". (And no, that possibility of "something more" does not NECESSARILY involve theism, although it doesn't close the doors to theistic belief either. But I want to make clear that I'm not trying to put out any God bait here. So relax all you atheists and agnostics. But in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that I consider myself a 'searcher' with regard to theism.)

Some follow-up experiments to Libet's work seemed to indicate the presence of "free won't"; i.e., although motor action decisions seemed to be made before conscious awareness of those decisions, real-time conscious decisions seemingly can be made to STOP a motor action in progress.

Interestingly, Libet himself posits the existence of a "cerebral mental field" (CMF). Here's a link to an article summary (however messy):

ScienceDirect - Progress in Neurobiology : Reflections on the interaction of the mind and brain

Libet, good empiricist that he is, also proposes an experiment to detect such a field. Such a field would, if it existed, be perhaps an unwelcome surprise to physics, which is presently in over its head trying to resolve the nature and interactions of gravity fields, electro-weak fields and strong nuclear fields. But the existence of such a field would be "in line" with dualist notions of "something more", although it wouldn't be the clincher.

As to whether such a 'consciousness field' could lead to free will: that depends on what you mean by 'free will'. I will try out a roughly-Kantian notion of it, i.e. that free will means being in synch with some kind of ultimate values of the universe, values that build-on but extend the physical laws of the universe. (Excuse my interpretation of Kant; as I said, it's very "rough", I'm not very good with Kant. Perhaps Kant's value base was more pragmatic, i.e. what human society determines, what society's core survival values are. Wasn't that Hume, though? And even then, one needs to wonder just where did the 'big system' of human society get its clues? Evolutionary forces, yes; survival, yes; stochastic processes, yes; but the 'goodness of being over non-being' somehow seeps thru all this).

Of course, in trying to describe what those values are, I'll get all sloppy and inexact and New Agey or religious or sentimental or such. Already did, didn't I. Sorry. Perhaps such values boil down to a simple notion, i.e. that existence over non-existence is good. All existence? The existence of evil, of Hitler, or pain and suffering, etc.???? Right, I haven't captured it. I'm trying to describe the basic feeling we have when not threatened, when engaged, when things are positive, when are lives and existence are affirmed. You know, the peak exhilaration moments, or the good moments like a sunny and pleasant afternoon, a good meditation session, a good interaction with another living being, etc. The stuff that is blocked out somehow in depression and suicidal moments, and is destroyed by overzealous attempts to control it, e.g. narcotics, materialism-wealth, power-mongering, sexual aggression, etc.

So: is there a "something more" that, through some field interaction, gets us in synch with some ultimate "value of the universe", and in doing so, gives us authenticity, gives us freedom? Yes, that would be nice, but I know that the empirical evidence is weak. However the empirical evidence that clinches mental nihilism and the physical determinism of the mind is also weak. So, just a reminder, after a big dualistic detour, that Libet's work has NOT been the knock-out blow to dualistic ponderings regarding the existence of "something more" to the mind and an "ultimate value" within the physical universe which, when a human mind discovers it, leads to what has been called 'free will'. (Ditto regarding the SELF -- another vexing question, of course).

Jim G, eternalstudent2
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I have discovered that I have free will to act, but I have no say over what the reaction will be to that act.

Libet's contribution ought to be seen as groundshaking. Freedom is fairly well proven, but will seems to have been upset.

The idea of the mind field or conscious field is probably not useful although it keeps brain function imaging technicians employed.