Free Will: An attempt to make sense of it.

In the free will debate, we are concerned with a well defined notion of determinsm.
A world is determined if and only if:
1) at all times that world has a definite state, which is, in principle, fully describable
2) there are laws of nature which are the same in all times and places of that world
3) given the state of that world at any time, the state of that world at all other times is exactly and globally fixed, by the given state in conjunction with the laws of nature.
As this definition is not to the effect that if any occurrence is non-random, then determinism is the case, it does not follow from the falsity of determinism that everything is random.
Further, two distinct notions of randomness are being confused. I have elaborated on this in post number 51 of this thread.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

We'll have to make sure about the laws of nature, as to any 'random'.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Tautological - if they didn't deny then they wouldn't be deniers.

Determinists plus anyone who holds that interactions at the microscopic level adhere to probabilistic randomnes... plus anyone who holds there is no consciousness at the minutest level and that we are all merely vast complexities of that minutest level.

Bully for them.

You have put forward a definition of free-will.
Yet you appear conceited enough to consider it the one and only definition, despite the flaws that I have raised with it that you have yet to address, other than with claiming strawman.
:shrug:
If you are content with your definition, great, but, as previously said, you are limiting your understanding and failing to address what I consider fairly fundamental weaknesses with it.
And as said - noone denies your definition of free-will exists, only some don't consider that to be a clear-enough definition that gets to the heart of the issue, but limits itself.
And when others seek to look at the clearer picture (of the underlying activity), you cry foul. :shrug:

So much for trying to push forward discussion beyond your "I'm right, you're wrong... but I can't explain why".

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

One of the confusions is connected to the scope of our observation. Picture this situation. We have two children on a see-saw. Say we limited the scope of our observation and only looked at one child at a time. The other is not visible. We will also observe the one child for a limited time. When that child goes up, it looks like it is in violation of gravity, since that is the scope we see. Since our scope is limited to only one child for a short time and since this is unusual to see, we may call it random. It will look random in that context. It may not be easy to describe in terms of cause and effect, since the scope does not include the extra variables in wider space or time. These variables would be speculation since they are outside the scope. The hard data says random.

If we assumed it can't be random, then we would need to explain a cause for this odd anti-gravity effect. To do that we need to open the scope of observation to include both children. Now what appeared to be random has a logical explanation; equal and opposite forces.

Relative to what you define as free will, which is not always free, the scope can become important when it comes to differentiating will and free will. Free will requires looking at the bigger picture in terms of overall cost. It also needs to looked at in terms of even larger scopes, since loss of energy in one place, is often being supplemented by energy way over there.

A good analogy for free will is radioactivity. We can handle so much radiation per year without permanent harm to the body. We can take it all in one day or spread over a year. Either way the determinism of the body will stay the same. Willpower is like the radiation analogy. One is able to deviate so much, while still following a sense of direction, as long as the energy balances. This requires a wider scope of observation to see; lifetime and not one day.

Will power is also like the leaf falling to earth. We know it will go down and finally reach the ground. But along the way, it will meander in the wind based on cause and effect due to energy vectors in the context of leaf design. Humans have also a little propulsion motor to add extra, but it still falls to the ground, since that is the larger scope of determinism.

 

The definition that I'm defending is a standard definition, of interest to philosophers. Your objections to free will, so defined, (despite your apparent acceptance of its existence), contravene, at least, the third essential principle of science, and I suspect all three principles. Worse, your objection appears to be based on realism about determinism, consequent to models in scientific theories. As scientific theories carry no ontological weight, your position is unsupported and incoherent, as far as I can tell.
Perhaps I'm mistaken. It would be helpful if you were to make a clear statement detailing the "free will" to which you object, and what your objection consists of.

 

And there we seem to have it: once again an attempt to make sense, of our notion of free will, devolves into an attempt to make sense of what someone thinks free will is.

 

Perhaps, yet it remains deficient in its scope and clarity of terms used, and relies on the rather difficult-to-prove notion of what is realisable.

But that aside, we shall continue with your definition...

I accept free-will exists, as you have defined, in the same way I accept that Magic exists - as defined by "activity that appears to defy the laws of physics". I see magicians perform such activity all the time... hence Magic exists.

The definition you are using relies on what the conscious interprets, and holds it as truth without looking at the underlying workings.
Just as you can claim "Magic is an illusion - and we can show how...", so with free-will we can claim "Free-will is an illusion..." and while we can not show it operates due to the complexities involved, we can infer its illusory nature due to the rational understanding that the universe - of which consciousness and thus free-will are a part - all operate via the same mechanisms of the laws of physics. Thus any sense of free-will is an emergent property (side-by-side with consciousness), appears "free" but is merely driven by the same underlying mechanisms as the rest of the universe.

As for the scientific principles:

Nope, no contravention here - unless you wish to identify where?

Sure, we can repeat the experiment - both at the gross "conscious interpretation" level that you are a proponent of, and at the microscopic level that suggest all things behave purely in accordance with laws of physics and not with any freedom.

There is no contravention here, either. You may claim there is - but you need to actually point it out why/how if your objection is to hold weight.
We have observed that particles behave according to physical laws. Do you dispute that?
We have not observed that we are made of anything other than matter. Do you dispute that?
If that matter is not free to act other than in accordance with the physical laws then, given that we are merely made up of that matter, we are only able to act in accordance with the physical laws, merely being another link in the cause/effect chain or randomness... i.e. everything we do is the result of the complexity of interactions that occur at the microscopic level and nothing else. Since those interactions are without freedom... :shrug:

So I say again, I hold that free-will (as defined) exists but as an illusion.
This is the general position of most "free-will deniers".

FYI - I am not a determinist. The objection to free-will is not specific to determinism.

And again - I hold that free-will (as defined) exists, but as an illusion.
That the definition of free-will that you provided limits itself to our conscious perception of the activity, and judges/assesses freedom on that basis rather than at the level that drives that consciousness.


Let me put it to you via another way:
If we did not know whether the universe was deterministic or not, whether it held randomness or not, whether there was some other agency involved that was utterly undetectable by science or not... it makes not difference to the fact that we are conscious and we do have free-will (as you have defined it). Agreed?

If we accept that a deterministic universe precludes the notion of genuine free-will (i.e. how can there be genuine free-will if the outcome is determined) and yet your definition of free-will still allows free-will to exist, how are we to describe it if it is not genuine?

(Bear in mind that a deterministic model of the universe is not the only one that precludes the notion of genuine free-will.)

Thus I say that your definition is weak in that it allows free-will to exist irrespective of the underlying mechanism... even in models that patently do not allow for the genuine article.
I (and other free-will deniers) prefer to look at that underlying activity and conclude whether the free-will (that we all say exists) is genuine or, like Magic, illusory in nature.



Furthermore, from a different perspective... genuine free-will requires an effect to be either uncaused and non-random. While we can identify seemingly uncaused events (radioactiv decay etc), these appear to be random. Genuine free-will seems to require an effect to be uncaused AND non-random in nature.

If the effect is caused then it is not free, as the cause/effect chain can be traced ad infinitum.
If the effect is random then it is also not free.

Science has so far not (to my knowledge) observed an uncaused and non-random effect.

 

Laws of physics are statements made by physicists, that's all. They have no ontic force and their descriptive value is limited to specified domains of physics.

You are committing a fallacy of composition. We do all sorts of things that particles do not do.

And by this you contravene the third principle. Free will is easy to demonstrate, you can dispute that demonstration on metaphysical grounds, but your metaphysical theory will either fail or it will override observation, and it is an essential principle of science that theory does not override observation.
All scientists assume that they have the freedom to perform the experiments which they design, they assume that they have the ability to make conscious choices in dealing with unforeseen circumstances which arise during the conduct of their experiments, in other words, like all healthy human adults, scientists unavoidably assume and successfully act on the assumption that they have free will. However, as they are scientists and as they need this assumption in order to successfully conclude experiments, they are engaged in an ongoing, continuous test of the hypothesis of free will. Every successful experiment conducted by any scientist, is a successful experimental test of the hypothesis of free will. So, no experiment conducted by any scientist can consistently be held to show lack of free will.

 

By specified domains of physics you of course refer to the entire observable universe?

So you think we don't behave according to the laws of physics???
Last time I looked, obeying the laws of physics is generally held to be an expansive property and thus outside the scope of composition fallacy.
Do correct me if I'm wrong, though - and provide justification.

It does NOT contravene that principle at all.
I have said again, and again, and again, that your definition of free-will exists.
I just hold that it exists in the same way that Magic does (Magic being the appearance of activity that defies laws of physics etc).

You are happy with your definition of X - whether X is illusory or not you refer to it (as we all do) as X and your definition allows X to exist irrespective of whether it is illusory or not.
Some of us, as I have explained at length, look at it in more detail. Yet you cry foul because it doesn't hold to your opinion.

Magic exists... yet some of us look at whether what we see is illusory or not.
While with Magic it is fairly easy to see that it is illusory, the illusion of free-will is implied through what we do know of how the underlying activity operates.

You really are just refusing to listen, aren't you.
For the last time - your definition of free-will exists. I have never disputed it. Free-will deniers also do not deny it.

But it is a definition that speaks nothing with regard the underlying nature of the activity that gives rise to our perception of that free-will... an underlying nature that could preclude such free-will from being anything other than an illusion created by our consciousness.

Even if we discovered the universe to be fully determined from the outset, we would still have the illusion of free-will, and your definition would still allow it to exist, yet we would know it to be an illusion.

And still you would probably try to argue that free-will exists, despite noone (even now) actually denying that, as defined, it exists.


So please, stop bleating and actually counter the issues raised - ultimately that freewill, as defined, exists but that the definition does not actually explain what it is and thus whether it is illusory or not.

 

It is blindingly obvious that some human behaviour, such as promise-keeping, is outside the remit of physics. Take Newton's first law of motion; do you need to wait for an external force to fortuitously lift you from your chair? Or can you get up under your own steam, in contradiction of Newton's law?

Of course they deny it. I have even told you which groups deny which features. If you're unaware of the content of the free will debate, you won't have anything relevant to contribute, will you?

1) it's a definition, not an explanation, so of course it defines and doesn't explain!
2) I have previously asked you to make it clear what kind of explanation you're looking for, you have yet to do so.
3) the issue I am dealing with is this:

We know the observation is of freely willed actions, unless we're prepared to take a metaphysical stance which involves rejecting essential principles of science.
4) if you have now got this point, and you have something else that you wish to discuss, concerning free will, state what that something is. But it will be quite pointless if you aren't even aware of what philosophers mean when they discuss the denial of free will.

 

How is it? What of promise-keeping defies the laws of physics?
Is physics the best way of understanding the philosophical aspects of it? No. But that is not what was stated.
Is promise-keeping outside the laws of physics?

Wow - you really think that Newton's first law is contradicted by someone standing up from a chair??? :shrug:

If you look to their arguments you will find that they do not deny what you call freewill... they deny that it is genuine and claim it is illusory.
Let X be what you call freewill: they call X the illusion of freewill, and what they would see as freewill is Y. They deny the existence of Y. But in both cases X is not denied to exist.
You think X exists.
They think X exists (as an illusion).
It really is as simple as that.

I'm not here to debate what others might think... I am debating what I think... comparing it to what you think. If you want to bring other peoples' arguments to the table, please do... with references.

And thus one can not say, purely from observation of that which we have defined, whether it is illusory or not.

Apologies if highlighting the weakness in your definition as not being able to differentiate between an illusion or the genuine article is not clear enough for you.

Not correct. We do NOT know the observation is of freely willed actions.
We only know that our consciousness perceives it as "freely willed", because of the inability of our consciousness to perceive the underlying activity (which may or may not be determined/random etc). And when the underlying activity is at the very heart of whether that freedom of will is illusory or not, relying on something that is unable to perceive that underlying activity is not to be relied upon as the arbiter.

And there is no rejection of any essential principles of science, as previously explained. Just bleating this as your default defense is tiresome.

I got your flawed point, and have duly pointed out the flaw.

So far your criticisms of those who claim freewill to be illusory amount to "I make a choice... I define this as free-will... and anyone who thinks differently to me is rejecting essential principles of science!".

You seem to be arguing that I am saying freewill (as you have defined) does not exist - and until you can grasp what is actually being said, which I have endeavoured so far to try and do, then I fear no progress will be made, as you will merely resort to your default lines.

 

You appear to be prepared to make and defend the silliest of statements. I am not. It is a fact that there is no law of physics which describes human promise-keeping, disputing this is beneath the level of silliness to which I'm willing to descend.

This is more illucid idiocy. Free will deniers deny that free will exists, obviously, this is what the term free will denier means. They dont say that it exists but is an illusion, again obviously, because that piece of nonsense appears to mean it exists but doesn't exist.

Conscious perception is what constitutes observation, speculations about that which cannot be perceived are theoretical. I have had enough of this, you appear to understand very little about the issues and be unable to distinguish sense from nonsense, and you still haven't explicated the notion of explanation that you have in mind. In short, I've had enough of wasting my time, you're on your own.

 

@ughaibu --

Take a look at this article and tell me what you think.

Here's a link to the article in question. I don't have a subscription, nor do I have the money for one, but I'm pretty sure that somebody here will and can share the juicy bits with us.

 

I have copies of four relevant articles by Haynes. It's not clear to me why Haynes' results are considered, by some, to be a problem for realists about free will.
What "juicy bits" have you in mind?

 

@ughaibu --

Preferably all of it, but the method and conclusion would be nice if nothing else.

 

Brief Communication
Nature Neuroscience 11, 543 - 545 (2008)
Published online: 13 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2112

Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
Chun Siong Soon1,2, Marcel Brass1,3, Hans-Jochen Heinze4 & John-Dylan Haynes1,2

Abstract
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Introduction
The impression that we are able to freely choose between different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life. However, it has been suggested that this subjective experience of freedom is no more than an illusion and that our actions are initiated by unconscious mental processes long before we become aware of our intention to act1, 2, 3. In a previous experiment1, electrical brain activity was recorded while subjects were asked to press a button as soon as they felt the urge to do so. Notably, their conscious decision to press the button was preceded by a few hundred milliseconds by a negative brain potential, the so-called 'readiness potential' that originates from the supplementary motor area (SMA), a brain region involved in motor preparation. Because brain activity in the SMA consistently preceded the conscious decision, it has been argued that the brain had already unconsciously made a decision to move even before the subject became aware of it.

However, these intriguing experiments have left a number of controversial questions open4, 5, 6. First, the readiness potential is generated by the SMA, and hence only provides information about late stages of motor planning. Thus, it is unclear whether the SMA is indeed the cortical site where the decision for a movement originates7 or whether high-level planning stages might be involved in unconsciously preparing the decision8, as was seen in studies on conscious action planning9, 10, 11, 12. Second, the time delay between the onset of the readiness potential and the decision is only a few hundred milliseconds1. It has been repeatedly argued that potential inaccuracies in the behavioral measurement of the decision time at such short delays could lead one to misjudge the relative timing of brain activity and intention3, 4, 5, 6. Third, does any leading brain activity indeed selectively predict the specific outcome of a choice ahead of time? To rule out the idea that any leading activity merely reflects unspecific preparatory activation13, it is necessary to study free decisions between more than one behavioral option11, 14.

Here we directly investigated which regions of the brain predetermine conscious intentions and the time at which they start shaping a motor decision. Subjects who gave informed written consent carried out a freely paced motor-decision task while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; see Fig. 1 and Supplementary Methods online). The subjects were asked to relax while fixating on the center of the screen where a stream of letters was presented. At some point, when they felt the urge to do so, they were to freely decide between one of two buttons, operated by the left and right index fingers, and press it immediately. In parallel, they should remember the letter presented when their motor decision was consciously made. After subjects pressed their freely chosen response button, a 'response mapping' screen with four choices appeared. The subjects indicated when they had made their motor decision by selecting the corresponding letter with a second button press. After a delay, the letter stream started again and a new trial began. The freely paced button presses occurred, on average, 21.6 s after trial onset, thus leaving sufficient time to estimate any potential buildup of a 'cortical decision' without contamination by previous trials. Both the left and right response buttons were pressed equally often and most of the intentions (88.6%) were reported to be consciously formed in 1,000 ms before the movement (Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Figs. 1, 2, 3 online).

Figure 1: Measuring the onset time of conscious motor intentions.


Subjects viewed a letter stream that was updated every 500 ms (shown here only for a few frames). At some point they spontaneously made the decision to press either the left or right button using their corresponding index finger (free response). Subsequently, they were presented with a response-mapping screen that instructed subjects as to which second button to press to report the time at which they consciously made the motor decision (Supplementary Methods).

Full size image (26 KB)

We directly assessed how much predictive information each brain region contained about the specific outcome of a motor decision at various time points before and after it reached awareness. For each time point, we measured how much information could be decoded from local patterns of fMRI signals in various brain regions using statistical pattern recognition techniques15 (Supplementary Fig. 4 online). These pattern-based decoders were trained to predict the specific outcome of a subject's motor decision by recognizing characteristic local brain patterns associated with each choice. This highly sensitive approach had several advantages over previous studies. First, it allowed us to investigate any potential long-term determinants of human intentions that preceded the conscious intention far beyond the few hundred milliseconds observed over the SMA1, 14. Second, it allowed us to separately investigate each brain region and determine how much information each region had about the outcome of a motor decision. Finally, our approach allowed us to identify whether any leading brain activity indeed selectively predicted the outcome of the subject's choice, rather than reflecting potentially nonspecific preparatory processes.

To validate our method, we first investigated which brain regions this decision could be decoded from after it had been made and the subject was executing the motor response. As expected, two brain regions encoded the outcome of the subject's motor decision during the execution phase: primary motor cortex and SMA (Fig. 2). Next, we addressed the key question of this study, whether any brain region encoded the subject's motor decision ahead of time. Indeed, we found that two brain regions encoded with high accuracy whether the subject was about to choose the left or right response prior to the conscious decision (threshold P = 0.05, family-wise error–corrected for multiple spatial and temporal comparisons; Fig. 2, see Supplementary Figs. 5 and 6 online for full details). The first region was in frontopolar cortex, BA10. The predictive information in the fMRI signals from this brain region was already present 7 s before the subject's motor decision. Taking into account the sluggishness of BOLD responses, the predictive neural information will have preceded the conscious motor decision by up to 10 s. There was a second predictive region located in parietal cortex stretching from the precuneus into posterior cingulate cortex. Notably, there was no overall signal increase in the frontopolar and precuneus/posterior cingulate during the preparation period (Supplementary Fig. 5). Rather, the predictive information was encoded in the local spatial pattern of fMRI responses, which is presumably why it has not been noticed before. When the statistical threshold was relaxed, several other regions of frontal cortex showed predictive information, albeit less pronounced (Supplementary Table 1 online). We also ensured that there was no carry-over of information between trials, so that the high decoding performance preceding the motor decision by up to 10 s cannot reflect decoding related to the previous trial (Supplementary Methods and Discussion online). We also ensured that decoding was not based on movement artifacts (Supplementary Fig. 7 online).

Figure 2: Decoding the outcome of decisions before and after they reached awareness.


Color-coded brain areas show regions where the specific outcome of a motor decision could be decoded before (bottom, green) and after (top, red) it had been made. The graphs separately depict for each time point the accuracy with which the subject's free choice to press the left or right button could be decoded from the spatial pattern of brain activity in that region (solid line, left axis; filled symbols, significant at P < 0.05; open symbols, not significant; error bars, s.e.m.; chance level is 50%). As might be expected, the decoding accuracy was higher in cortical areas involved in the motor execution of the response than in areas shaping the upcoming decision before it reaches awareness (note the difference in scale). The vertical red line shows the earliest time at which the subjects became aware of their choices. The dashed (right) vertical line in each graph shows the onset of the next trial. The inset in the bottom left shows the representative spatial pattern of preference of the most discriminative searchlight position in frontopolar cortex for one subject (ant, anterior; sup, superior; see Supplementary Fig. 9 online).

Full size image (94 KB)

Finally, we also assessed the degree to which the timing of the decision could be predicted ahead of time. We found that decoding of the time decision was possible as early as 5 s preceding the motor decision, but mainly from pre-SMA and SMA, whereas in the frontopolar and parietal cortex this was only possible just before the motor decision (Supplementary Fig. 5). Thus, there appears to be a double dissociation in the very early stages between brain regions shaping the specific outcome of the motor decision and brain regions determining the timing of a motor decision. At later stages, right before the conscious decision, both of these regions begin to encode timing and handedness information.

Finally, to further investigate the involvement of frontopolar cortex and precuneus in selecting intentions, we investigated voluntary decisions where subjects have to decide between left and right responses at an externally determined point in time. In this case, the time when a decision is selected is under experimental control. This revealed that frontopolar cortex was already predictive during the selection of the response, whereas the predictive information in precuneus began after the selection during the delay. This is consistent with a trend in the main experiment that showed that the information in lateral frontopolar cortex had already peaked at the earliest time point. One interpretation of this finding is that frontopolar cortex was the first cortical stage at which the actual decision was made, whereas precuneus was involved in storage of the decision until it reached awareness. Notably, the intention was selected consciously in this control experiment, suggesting that similar networks might be involved in conscious and unconscious preparation of decisions (see Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Fig. 8 online for full details).

Taken together, two specific regions in the frontal and parietal cortex of the human brain had considerable information that predicted the outcome of a motor decision the subject had not yet consciously made. This suggests that when the subject's decision reached awareness it had been influenced by unconscious brain activity for up to 10 s, which also provides a potential cortical origin for unconscious changes in skin conductance preceding risky decisions8. Our results go substantially further than those of previous studies1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 by showing that the earliest predictive information is encoded in specific regions of frontopolar and parietal cortex, and not in SMA. This preparatory time period in high-level control regions is considerably longer than that reported previously for motor-related brain regions1, 14, and is considerably longer than the predictive time shown by the SMA in the current study (Supplementary Fig. 5). Also, in contrast with most previous studies1, 13, the preparatory time period reveals that this prior activity is not an unspecific preparation of a response. Instead, it specifically encodes how a subject is going to decide. Thus, the SMA is presumably not the ultimate cortical decision stage where the conscious intention is initiated, as has been previously suggested7. Notably, the lead times are too long to be explained by any timing inaccuracies in reporting the onset of awareness, which was a major criticism of previous studies4, 5, 6. The temporal ordering of information suggests a tentative causal model of information flow, where the earliest unconscious precursors of the motor decision originated in frontopolar cortex, from where they influenced the buildup of decision-related information in the precuneus and later in SMA, where it remained unconscious for up to a few seconds. This substantially extends previous work that has shown that BA10 is involved in storage of conscious action plans9, 10, 11 and shifts in strategy following negative feedback12. Thus, a network of high-level control areas can begin to shape an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Note: Supplementary information is available on the Nature Neuroscience website.

top of page
Author contributions

J.-D.H., C.S.S., M.B. and H.-J.H. conceived the experiment. C.S.S. and J.-D.H. carried out the experiment. C.S.S. analyzed the data. J.-D.H. and C.S.S. wrote the paper.



top of page
Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank D. Passingham and H. Lau for valuable comments and T. Mildner and S. Zysset for help with scanning. This work was funded by the Max Planck Society and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Received 8 January 2008; Accepted 21 March 2008; Published online 13 April 2008.

top of page
References

Libet, B. et al. Behav. Brain Sci. 8, 529566 (1985). | ISI |
Wegner, D.M. Trends Cogn. Sci. 7, 6569 (2003). | Article | PubMed |
Haggard, P. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9, 290295 (2005). | Article | PubMed | ISI |
Van de Grind, W. Conscious Cogn. 11, 241264 (2002). | Article | PubMed |
Glynn, I.M. Nature 348, 477479 (1990). | Article |
Joordens, S., van Duijn, M. & Spalek, T.M. Conscious. Cogn. 11, 231240 (2002). | Article | PubMed |
Eccles, J.C. Arch. Psychiatr. Nervenkr. 231, 423441 (1982). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D. & Damasio, A.R. Science 275, 12931295 (1997). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Koechlin, E., Basso, G., Pietrini, P., Panzer, S. & Grafman, J. Nature 399, 148151 (1999). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Burgess, P.W., Quayle, A. & Frith, C.D. Neuropsychologia 39, 545555 (2001). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Haynes, J.D. et al. Curr. Biol. 17, 323328 (2007). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Hampton, A.N. & O'Doherty, J.P. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 13771382 (2007). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
Lau, H.C., Rogers, R.D., Haggard, P. & Passingham, R.E. Science 303, 12081210 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
Haggard, P. & Eimer, M. Exp. Brain Res. 126, 128133 (1999). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Haynes, J.D. & Rees, G. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7, 523534 (2006). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Haus 6, Philippstrasse 13, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
Department of Experimental Psychology and Ghent Institute for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Department of Neurology II, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Strasse 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
Correspondence to: John-Dylan Haynes1,2 e-mail: haynes@bccn-berlin.de

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.

REVIEWS
Human volition: towards a neuroscience of will
Nature Reviews Neuroscience Review (01 Dec 2008)
Functional neuroimaging of the vegetative state
Nature Reviews Neuroscience Perspective (01 Mar 2008)
Decoding mental states from brain activity in humans
Nature Reviews Neuroscience Review (01 Jul 2006)
See all 5 matches for Reviews
RESEARCH
Effect of subjective perspective taking during simulation of action: a PET investigation of agency
Nature Neuroscience Article (01 May 2001)
Altered awareness of voluntary action after damage to the parietal cortex
Nature Neuroscience Article (01 Jan 2004)
See all 3 matches for Research

 

Thank you.

 

I hope you choke on it. Say hi to Callie for me.

 

What you WILL do is a form of determinism: what you WILL do is already set. However a strict definition of de-term-inism means to 'undo' a terminology: something is defined by a term (possibly a length of time) and then de-term-ined.

 

Strawman on your part. I never said that laws of physics describe promise-keeping. I said the promise-keeping does not defy the laws of physics - which you seem to suggest, a view that is evidenced further by your claim that standing up under our own will contravenes Newton's first law!!!
But you don't address these criticisms.
Instead you cry foul and live on nothing but your confidence.

I can't be held responsible for your lack of understanding.
Feel free to post any claim by any philosopher where they dispute that they have freewill as you have defined it.
What they dispute is what that freewill actually is, what mechanisms drive it, and thus whether it is actually free or not, and thus whether it is illusory or not.

So it seems that disagreeing with you = understanding very little?
All you have offered thus far is "You're wrong!" or "You're rejecting notions of science!" or "You don't understand the issue!".
Yet despite me setting out the issues I have with your notion of freewill, despite me countering your repeated rejections that you keep bleating, despite me clarifying when asked, you seem unable to understand but instead cling to your security-blanket responses, despite me refuting those responses, and most disrespectfully of all you seem to cherrypick which parts of my response you cry foul on, and seem to pay no heed to the rest.

I can not be held responsible for your inability to counter arguments adequately.