Is free-will an illusion?

what difference does that make? Chomsky basically demonstrates that the hypothesis is an absurd one IF one attempts to use it to provide an "accomplished explanation."

He presented no data in his critique...[Darwin and Skinner] spawned pursuits of empirical evidence, the results of which led to bodies of research that supported their core ideas

... "logic" does not supply any new information or have anything whatsoever to do with "empirical truth." Logical "conclusions" are contained in the premises.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

There are other areas of this debate where personal "belief" seems to direct the discussion. There is an acknowledged category of informal logical fallacies that is commonly referred to as "arguments from personal incredulity." The idea is along the lines of: You haven't convinced me that you are right, therefore you are wrong."

Quite a convenient approach to take, eh? If you can't prove me wrong (to my satisfaction), then I am right. By that standard millions of people holding diametrically-opposed opinions on a topic would ALL be right.

Chomsky had no data to disprove the thesis of Verbal Behavior, nor does he yet....Chomsky showed no such thing; he merely asserted it

Quote:

He presented no data in his critique...[Darwin and Skinner] spawned pursuits of empirical evidence, the results of which led to bodies of research that supported their core ideas

Brian, my position is that anyone who thinks these issues are, at their core, about "data" or "empirical evidence" simply misconstrue the nature of the problem and are looking for "solutions" in the wrong places.

Underlying the differing views, at bottom, are philosophical differences pertaining to a posited ontology, epistemology, etc. Those differences get automatically incorporated into the conclusions (made by either side) drawn from "data." Experiments, standing alone, do not, and can not, produce "conclusions." Only rational analysis, based on some set of assumptions or another, can do that.

Those who insist that "experiments" confirm their philosophical biases often do not take the time to critically analyze their fundamental assumptions. When they do undertake such an analysis, then they are forced to admit that "logic" does not supply any new information or have anything whatsoever to do with "empirical truth." Logical "conclusions" are contained in the premises.

I have little more than a passing interest in some of the philosophical arguments.

the direction the debate has taken is a side step to the meat of the problem at hand and of little interest to say the best.

The information from operant conditioning is less than a 100 years old. It is not well known or understood. and I suspect..the science of behavior correct [will] the misunderstandings of human behavior developed from times that did not have the tools of this science.

There is plenty of reason to be skeptical, and insufficient reason to delare certainty for either side.

Free won't is just Libet's post hoc rationalization; he didn't do any experiment specifically for that.

Also, the abstract that you re-posted only shows that both the decision to act and the decision not to act have measurable precursors in subliminal brain activity. Like you say, they are both decisions.

Lastly, you're ignoring Haynes' work that corroborates Libet's.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for further experimental developments. I won't be participating in rhetorical back-and-forth, though. That's been going on for many years without much in the way of resolution.

There is no evidence that the mental activity 'seen' on Libet' encephalograms, that comes a few tenths of a second before the 'decision awareness time' (W), is necessarily subconscious

If "we" don't make decisions about if and when to a move a finger voluntarily, who/what does?

Internally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition
Itzhak Friedcorrespondenceemail, Roy Mukamel, Gabriel Kreiman

Highlights
Progressive changes in firing rates precede self-initiated movements
Medial frontal cortex units signal volition onset before subjects' awareness
Prediction level is high (90%) based on neuronal responses in single trials
Volition could arise from accumulation of ensemble activity crossing a threshold
Summary
Understanding how self-initiated behavior is encoded by neuronal circuits in the human brain remains elusive. We recorded the activity of 1019 neurons while twelve subjects performed self-initiated finger movement. We report progressive neuronal recruitment over ∼1500 ms before subjects report making the decision to move. We observed progressive increase or decrease in neuronal firing rate, particularly in the supplementary motor area (SMA), as the reported time of decision was approached. A population of 256 SMA neurons is sufficient to predict in single trials the impending decision to move with accuracy greater than 80% already 700 ms prior to subjects' awareness. Furthermore, we predict, with a precision of a few hundred ms, the actual time point of this voluntary decision to move. We implement a computational model whereby volition emerges once a change in internally generated firing rate of neuronal assemblies crosses a threshold.

Accepted: November 23, 2010;
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc.

What is the Bereitschaftspotential?
Shibasaki H1, Hallett M.

Abstract
Since discovery of the slow negative electroencephalographic (EEG) activity preceding self-initiated movement by Kornhuber and Deecke [Kornhuber HH, Deecke L. Hirnpotentialänderungen bei Willkurbewegungen und passiven Bewegungen des Menschen: Bereitschaftspotential und reafferente Potentiale. Pflugers Archiv 1965;284:1-17], various source localization techniques in normal subjects and epicortical recording in epilepsy patients have disclosed the generator mechanisms of each identifiable component of movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs) to some extent. The initial slow segment of BP, called 'early BP' in this article, begins about 2 s before the movement onset in the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) with no site-specificity and in the SMA proper according to the somatotopic organization, and shortly thereafter in the lateral premotor cortex bilaterally with relatively clear somatotopy. About 400 ms before the movement onset, the steeper negative slope, called 'late BP' in this article (also referred to as NS'), occurs in the contralateral primary motor cortex (M1) and lateral premotor cortex with precise somatotopy. These two phases of BP are differentially influenced by various factors, especially by complexity of the movement which enhances only the late BP. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) of beta frequency EEG band before self-initiated movements shows a different temporospatial pattern from that of the BP, suggesting different neuronal mechanisms for the two. BP has been applied for investigating pathophysiology of various movement disorders. Volitional motor inhibition or muscle relaxation is preceded by BP quite similar to that preceding voluntary muscle contraction. Since BP of typical waveforms and temporospatial pattern does not occur before organic involuntary movements, BP is used for detecting the participation of the 'voluntary motor system' in the generation of apparently involuntary movements in patients with psychogenic movement disorders. In view of Libet et al.'s report [Libet B, Gleason CA, Wright EW, Pearl DK. Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 1983;106:623-642] that the awareness of intention to move occurred much later than the onset of BP, the early BP might reflect, physiologically, slowly increasing cortical excitability and, behaviorally, subconscious readiness for the forthcoming movement. Whether the late BP reflects conscious preparation for intended movement or not remains to be clarified.

Scientific evidence that you probably don’t have free will

George Dvorsky
Filed to: DAILY EXPLAINER1/14/13 2:41pm

...
But subsequent experiments by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s reinforced the pioneering work of Kornhuber and Deecke. Similarly, Libet had his participants move their fingers, but this time while watching a clock with a dot circling around it. His data showed that the readiness potential started about 0.35 seconds earlier than participants' reported conscious awareness.

He concluded that we have no free will as far as the initiation of our movements are concerned, but that we had a kind of cognitive "veto" to prevent the movement at the last moment; we can't start it, but we can stop it.

From a neurological perspective, Libet and others attributed the effect to the SMA/pre-SMA and the anterior cingulate motor areas of the brain — an area that allows us to focus on self-initiated actions and execute self-instigated movements.

Modern tools show the same thing

More recently, neuroscientists have used more advanced technologies to study this phenomenon, namely fMRIs and implanted electrodes. But if anything, these new experiments show the BP effect is even more pronounced than previously thought.

...

In another study, neuroscientist Itzhak Fried put aside the fMRI scanner in favor of digging directly into the brain (so to speak). To that end, he implanted electrodes into the brains of participants in order to record the status of individual neurons — a procedure that gave him an incredibly precise sense of what was going on inside the brain as decisions were being made.

His experiment showed that the neurons lit up with activity as much as 1.5 seconds before the participant made a conscious decision to press a button. And with about 700 milliseconds to go, Fried and his team could predict the timing of decisions with nearly 80% accuracy. In some scenarios, he had as much as 90% predictive accuracy.
...

And in yet another study, this one by Stefan Bode, his detailed fMRI experiments showed that it was possible to actually decode the outcome of free decisions for several seconds prior to it reaching conscious awareness.

Specifically, he discovered that activity patterns in the anterior frontopolar cortex (BA 10) were temporally the first to carry information related to decision-making, thus making it a prime candidate region for the unconscious generation of free decisions. His study put much of the concern about the integrity of previous experiments to rest.
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