Is free-will an illusion?

His study put much of the concern about the integrity of previous experiments to rest.

An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement

Aaron Schurger, Jacobo D. Sitt, and Stanislas Dehaene

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/E2904.full.pdf

The premovement buildup of neuronal activity apparent in the RP and the assumption of causality invested in it have become a cornerstone in the study of volition....Here we present a very different interpretation of mounting neural activity preceding spontaneous movements made in the context of a spontaneous-movement production task.

It is widely assumed that the neural decision to move coincides with the onset of the RP (which, given its slow nonlinear character, is difficult to pinpoint) (11). Our model challenges that assumption by suggesting that the“neural decision to move now” might come very late in the time course of the RP.

Prestimulus activity has previously been shown to influence reaction time in a choice reaction-time task (30). Our data show that the same is also true for unpredictable movement cues in a temporally unconstrained task, thus exposing ongoing spontaneous neural activity as a possible factor in the initiation of spontaneous movement.

although our model is silent with respect to the urge to move and its temporal relation to motor decisions, it helps dissolve another puzzling question that seemed to arise from Libet’s paradigm.....this question arises only when we assume that the motor decision coincides in time with the onset of the RP.

We propose that the neural decision to move coincides in time with average subjective estimates of the time of awareness of intention to move (9, 11) and that the brain produces a reasonably accurate estimate of the time of its movement-causing decision events.

But not everyone agrees with the conclusions of these findings. Free will, the skeptics argue, is far from debunked.

Back in 2010, W. R. Klemm published an analysis in which he complained about the ways in which the data was being interpreted, and what he saw as grossly oversimplified experimentation.

Others have criticized the timing judgements, arguing about the short timeframes between action and movement, and how attention to aspects of timing were likely creating distortions in the data.

It's also possible that the brain regions being studied, namely the pre-SMA/SMA and the anterior cingulate motor areas of the brain, may only be responsible for the late stages of motor planning; it's conceivable that other higher brain systems might be better candidates for exerting will.

The jury, it would appear, is still out on the question of free will.

There's clearly lots of work that still needs to be done.

I will note, however, that in his apparent haste to present his citations as "settled science," (name removed) totally omitted the portion of that last article . . .

No resolution ? That's political talk from the likes as Dennet with "soft determinism"...
Notice that even the "creme de la creme" top notch free will defenders on the "market" Like Daniel Dennet bluntly admit people cannot chose otherwise...and as far as talking to Olivier is concerned this is enough to trash down his entire naive pov.

1 - Free will both requires determinism for agency to operate while trying to disprove it when we go past the agency level. Lacks internal consistency.

2 - Free will begs the question of a not unified primary substance operating in the world. Its divisive for a proper meaningful use of Physics as we know it. It disrupts mechanical explanation...

There could be more than one thing in the universe.

PS - Note please that Daniel Dennet never denies the fact that WE CANNOT DO OTHERWISE

In the same way a "calculator"/computer programmed to avoid anything does the algorithmic calculation to avoid it...

Abandoned that and all hell breaks loose...

In what way is the realm ("laws of") of physics in any way "threatened" or otherwise affected if I truly have the choice between going to get another case of beer now, or five minutes from now, assuming that I can choose to do either?

...no one denies you make a choice here...what one is denying is that such choice is not determined.

Quote:

...no one denies you make a choice here...what one is denying is that such choice is not determined.

I didn't question that it was "determined." I asked whether it was "pre-determined," i.e., inevitable and totally unavoidable. Dictated by Fate. All that there, ya know?

Me think you take metaphysic way too seriously...